


Convalescence

by thesecondseal



Series: Acts of Reclamation [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friendship, Healing, Humor, Kissing, Love Letters, Romance, Second Kiss, Sexual Humor, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Subterfuge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a brutal attack following her exploration of the Shrine of Dumat, Essa takes some time for recovery at Skyhold while her sister Cari settles into her new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude: No One Talks That Way

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by themightyzan on tumblr. quote from Labyrinth “ “I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.” Some total silliness that actually falls in chronology between Stormclouds and Convalescence. Some silliness and fluff.

Essa woke from the most recent in a long line of leisurely naps. She was developing a certain fondness for her quarters. They were large enough and spacious enough that—now that Cari had taken that monstrous canopied bad to her own suite and Josie had replaced it with something lacking a blighted roof—if Essa left the balcony doors open, she could pretend she was outdoors. The sheets were nice too. Linen at least as fine as the dresses upon which she and Josie and Cari had managed to compromise. And by compromise, she meant, gotten her way completely while letting them think she was utterly suffering on their behalf.

There were too many pillows, of course, but Fin had removed the stuffing from one over-embroidered thing and replaced it with sweet hay and dried alfalfa. Essa had slept clutching it until a small horse-shaped doll mysteriously appeared on her bed, knitted from brown cotton and filled with the same stuffing. She was not remotely ashamed to admit that she slept with it tucked against her cheek and, true or not, she looked at the toy as the first in a long line of steps back to the stable.

But she wasn’t ready yet. She couldn’t think about her friends without seeing Smoke’s body at her feet. Without feeling as if she had failed all of them. She knew, in what Cassandra referred to as the scant measure of her mind reserved for reasonable judgment, that Smoke’s death was not her fault, but she couldn’t  _feel_ that truth. It lay tangled up in her own loss and helplessness, and her selfish relief that it had been Smoke and not Geri to accompany her to the shrine. The Courser’s speed had cost her life, and Essa had made certain those responsible paid.

But she blamed herself.

“Good morning.” Cari’s greeting dragged bleary eyes open. Essa blinked up through the late morning sun to find her sister standing by her bed. “You fell asleep reading? Or did you manage to finish your book?”

“I finished it,” Essa croaked, voice rough with sleep. “Barely.”

She sat up amid the sheets, fighting a yawn as shed dug around beneath the pillows. 

“I think I must have read it wrong,” she said frowning as she handed Cari the leather-bound book. “Because I did not see anything remotely attractive about that king.”

Cari laughed. “I can’t imagine why not,” she said drily. Before Essa could launch into what she felt was a very thoughtful character analysis, Cari held one hand up to stop her. “Save it for the meeting.”

“Fine…” Essa groused, climbing out of bed and weaving an almost steady path to the washroom.

“You know,” she called out as she began her morning toilette. “I don’t require constant company or entertainment. I’m almost back to normal. I haven’t fallen asleep mid-meal for a whole day now.”

Essa understood that she had frightened all of them, but she was fine. She had told them she was fine. Cole had told them she was fine. Solas had confirmed that she was not trapped in the Fade at the mercy of her demons…and that she. Was. Fine.

“You are,” Cari agreed. “And certainly not an invalid. Seeker Cassandra is fond of reminding us.”

“Precisely,” Essa nearly shouted. 

“Have you noticed the effect that your resting has had on everyone else though?”

Essa paused, toothbrush in mouth, comb stuck in the nest of her hair.

“No?” she mumbled loudly enough to heard in the next room.

“They need the rest too,” Cari appeared in the doorway and met Essa’s gaze in the mirror above her wash bowl. “There isn’t a person here who would take that rest for their own. The stakes are too high. But your exhaustion?”

Essa lifted a brow in askance.

“Your exhaustion,” Cari continued. “won’t last. You’ve only been resting a handful of days, and soon you’ll be back to your usual madness. This brief convalescence won’t matter much in the long run, but…it may be exactly what everyone here needs before…”

She turned away and Essa didn’t call her back. She knew that Cari was struggling with Essa’s brushes with death.

“Before we go fight the good fight and figure out how to kill Coryphytits,” she said brightly, clomping back out in one of her favorite dresses. The undyed linen shift made her sister and Josie weep. Or so Cari had told her. Repeatedly.

“Not the burlap sack, Ester Donya.”

Essa smirked. If Cari was busting out her full name, she was serious. Not that it mattered.

“It isn’t a burlap sack, Carilyna Rose,” Essa replied in a reasonable mimic. “It’s much softer than that. Look, I’m wearing the silk leggings, so there’s color.”

“But no style,” Cari complained. “And those boots…”

Essa pointed one finger at her sister. “Mock everything else if you like, but not the boots. They’re perfect and wonderful—“

“And were a gift from Commander Cullen,” Cari finished for her with a dramatic sigh. “Yes, yes, I know.  _Everyone_  knows.”

Essa snorted. “They’re good boots,” she insisted, lifting her nose.

“They are good boots,” Cari muttered.

*

She had slept through breakfast, but brunch was becoming an entirely too civilized affair in Essa’s opinion. Dorian had organized a late morning book club with an offhand joke one evening when he delivered a stack of reading materials to Essa’s quarters to “keep her mind from rotting in idleness.” The next day Essa had been shocked to find him, Cassandra, and Vivienne waiting to discuss the latest of Varric’s novels. Three mornings had passed in that same fashion, and their circle had grown along with the artfully arrayed seating and the trays of elaborate sweets that Ola sent with their tea. Essa sat on the floor, stuffed horse in her lap, trying not to grin at what had to be the best caricature of a ladies book club that Thedas had ever seen.

“Everyone has had a chance to finish the book?” Cassandra asked, taking point on the discussion as everyone settled in their seats. She was perched on a small stool, book clasped almost reverently in her hands.

There were various answers to the affirmative. Essa watched as the Iron Bull loaded a tiny porcelain plate with tinier brightly iced tea cakes. He leaned back in the not-quite-large-enough chair beside her with a satisfied sigh. Essa bumped his foot when his gaze lingered too long on Dorian.

“I finished it sometime last night,” Essa told them when Cassandra glanced her way. She had been the last to read the work. An old fantasy novel that most had read in late adolescence, when Essa had been chin-deep in Andrastian theology.

“And what did you think, my dear?” Vivienne asked. The grand enchanter sat on one end of the long sofa Josie had only recently replaced in the room. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and she sipped from a delicate floral teacup. It was,perhaps, the closest to relaxed Essa had ever seen her.

“Honestly?” Essa fidgeted with the stuffed horse that she held in her lap. “I didn’t really like it.”

“Oh, why not?” Josie’s placed her cup down in dismay, shifting in her seat beside Vivienne.

“I found it…unreasonable.” Essa attempted to be charitable, knew the moment that her face betrayed her inadequate choice of words.

“Oh, this I have to hear.” Varric looked up from his spot at Essa’s desk, a knowing smirk on his face, quill poised above parchment. He didn’t join in on their discussions often, claiming he just wanted to write and occasionally observe, but from the glint in his eye this morning, Essa was pretty sure they had his full attention.

“It was stupid,” she declared baldly. “The main character was a brat, that king was a jerk, and can we just  _say_  manipulation?! I would have—“

“Punched him in the throat,” Cari finished for her, making them all laugh.

Essa grinned. “Exactly.”

“Oh, but don’t you think it’s even a little romantic?” Josie asked.

“A creepy old mage stalking some half-wit damsel and kidnapping her baby brother?” Essa’s mouth gaped. Had they read the same book?

Cassandra’s lips twitched and Essa badly wanted to know what she thought.

“He manipulated time for her,” Dorian offered. “And even you have to admit that the man knew how to make an entrance.”

She had to admit no such thing. Essa felt her ire rising. She swiped a cake from Bull’s plate, popped it in her mouth and reached for the copy of the book that Dorian had loaned her.

“Let me find it,” she mumbled around her mouthful, thumbing through the book. Bull anticipated her next move, obligingly passed her his cup of tea to wash the sweet down. “Thank you.”

“Ah, here it is.” Essa sat up straight so that they could hear her properly as she read. “‘I ask for so little.’ The king entreated. ‘Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave’.”

She closed the book with a snap.“First, uh, bullshit.” She declared. “No thanks, creepy king. You’re asking for total obedience from someone who doesn’t even know her own mind and—”

She did not get to her second point before everyone was jostling to speak. Essa slouched against the side of Bull’s chair, fingers toying with the mane of her stuffed horse.

“’Slave is probably not the best term,” Dorian admitted. He knew that it was not a word she liked. “But I do believe the intent is one of mutual submission.”

“A leash pulls both ways my dear,” Vivienne reminded her, tone as cultured as ring velvet. Her lips curved into the briefest of smiles.

Essa’s eyes narrowed. “I know that,” she tried again, only to be interrupted by the Iron Bull.

“Boss, the submissive is the one with the power. It’s granted, which means it can be taken away at any time.”

“Yes, I know,” Essa huffed. She was getting impatient to make her point. Josie coughed just once, and later Essa would remember the warning, but not then.  No, she didn’t catch it then.

“Look,” she barreled into her lecture before anyone else could stop her. “Cullen and I have had this conversation a dozen times. Believe me, I understand that the one on their knees is the one with the power. But–”

Silence. Utter. Dooming. Silence.

By the time Essa’s brain caught up with her tongue, she knew her entire body was crimson.

“I am  _talking_  about prayer!” she hissed desperately, glaring at the floor. “Brother Macgrori wrote extensively during the Black Age about the arrogance of religious petitioners and how kneeling in supplication was just a public spectacle of submission—“

No one was listening, they were too busy laughing. All except for Cari and Vivienne at least, who were too refined to join in the unapologetic guffaws filling the morning like sunlight.  Even Josie was giggling into the ruffles at her wrist, cheeks dusky rose and dark eyes shining. Essa dropped her head, buried her face in soft knit and wondered if she could will herself through the floor.  _I’m so sorry, Cullen_ , she thought furiously. She could handle the teasing, well…if it didn’t currently kill her, but she could not imagine that he would appreciate the same.

“Oh, boss, don’t cry,” Bull teased, one broad hand patting her back. “We all know you two aren’t near that stage. You’re both too damn prickly.”

His feigned attempt at reassurance didn’t make things better. Of course, he knew that. Essa lifted her head to glare at him, but it was hard to blame anyone else for her self-inflicted humiliation. And Maker, she realized, looking around the small circle, it was good to see so many months of worry lift from the faces of her friends, even for a moment.

“Enough,” Cassandra  was the first to take pity on Essa’s still-flaming cheeks. A few stern looks at Dorian and Varric soon quieted the group. “You said first, I assume that means you have at least one more issue with the book?”

“The dialogue,” Essa groaned. “Just the whole way he spoke! Like all conversation had to be some carefully composed melodrama. No one talks that way, Jareth!”

She yelled this last at the book and this time everyone laughed with her rather than at her.

“Who writes this stuff?” she called over to Varric, knowing that she would soon be in for at least an hour of the book’s defense.

Varric shrugged. “A good writer draws truth from what he sees,” he offered helpfully. “Take for instance one of my more recent favorite quotes ‘what is the point in having a heart full of love if you’re too afraid to give it away?’”

Cassandra sighed, the sentiment having obviously wormed past her armor for a direct strike to her heart.

Essa made a face. “Tell me you didn’t write that overly romantic swill.”

“I did,” Varric paused to jot something down before him. “But you said it.”

“I did not!” Essa glared at the ceiling. 

“You did, Blackwall ratted you out. He seemed rather taken with your wisdom.”

Essa snorted. “Who writes this stuff?” she muttered again.


	2. Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Essa is convalescing, Cari begins training.

“You really want to learn to fight?” Essa’s brow furrowed with skepticism. “And I mean brawl, not that elegant dancing with knives thing you do.”

She stared across the plush carpet at her sister, wondering if sometime during her last nap Cari had been replaced with a very crafty demon.

“Yes,” Cari huffed. “For the fifth time, I am not a demon, and I want to learn how to fight with my hands.”

“You’re the best person I know with a blade,” Essa declared. “I don’t see where you’ll be better served with a punch.”

Truth was she was pretty reluctant to throw a fist at her sister’s pretty face. Their shared features balanced on a knife’s edge between grace and piercing. Essa had neglected hers. The sun exposure, the freckles, the broken nose, the jagged scar along a square jaw that she had inherited from their father. Cari’s skin was fair and unblemished, her nose a clean straight line. Her jaw was soft, like their mother’s, and her eyes tended toward mist rather than flint. She used cosmetics with a fine hand and her long dark hair was always arranged artfully enough to make Essa wistful for just a moment before she remembered she would have hated the upkeep.

“I am not the best person you know with a blade.” Cari tossed one perfect curl over her shoulder. “I am  _adequate_  with blades and I know one good surprise sneak that I taught you.”

Essa grimaced.

“I don’t regret that, by the way.” Her confession drifted cool and light as a balm through the sudden stillness.  “And I’m glad that I can finally tell you that.”

Eleven years later. Essa didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“But,” Cari said, brushing her hands together and scattering heavier thoughts. “That doesn’t make me skilled enough to suit. So—“ She lifted her fists. “Teach me.”

“Is this some covert attempt of Cassandra’s to get me out of bed?”

Cari laughed. “You’ve been out of bed for five days,” she returned. “Attending meetings, reading reports. You leave for a mission in a week. I think Cassandra is content enough at the moment.”

“Fine.” Essa stared at her. “But you can’t wear that dress. I just know it’ll tangle around my legs at some point and I won’t pull a punch in time to keep from ruining your pretty face.”

Essa ducked into her dressing room.

“I am not wearing one of those blighted sacks you call a tunic!” Cari called after her.

“I have other clothes!” Essa shouted back.

She just refused to wear them. They either reminded her of the Circle or of everything she never wanted to be. There was a saying “Clothes maketh the man.” The same could be said for woman. Essa liked who she was. More and more each day actually.

She rummaged in one of her neglected chests, then emerged carrying a pair of dark velvet leggings and a snug tunic in the same fabric. She threw them at her sister. Cari reached up to catch the outfit and barely dodged the soft-soled slippers that followed.

“You’re not a brawler, Carilyna,” Essa told her flatly. “But I’ll teach you to hit something with your fists, I might even show you a good head butt, but that’s it.”

“That’s more than enough.”

*

“She’s fast,” the Iron Bull said appreciatively from his too casual lean against Essa’s bed. “A little lean, but we could put some muscle on her.”

“Moves like a dancer,” Krem added. “Almost as light on her feet as Sera.”

“Pssh,” rebuffed the rogue in doubt. “Lies. Es is still tired. Give her another week and she’ll stomp circles around her sister.”

Sera’s feet dangled, kicking cheerfully at the top of the ladder that led up to the narrow loft in Essa’s quarters. Her gaze darted, quick and light between Cari and Essa. Cari nearly took a pulled punch to the ribs in her distraction.

“She will,” Cari agreed with a smile. “I had to take advantage of her—“

But ‘weakness’ didn’t seem the right word as Essa tossed a jab close to her face. Cari dodged, but only just. Essa grinned, tapped Cari’s chin with her other hand.

“You would be down,” she said with chuckle.  “Or at the very least you would be spitting out blood.”

“Barbarian,” Cari accused.

“She is,” Bull said, more than a little proudly.

Cari tried not to scowl at how familiar he seemed with her sister. Essa had sent for the Iron Bull, Krem, and Sera after the first hour of instruction, claiming that Cari had more natural ability than their father had realized and insisting that she should start work with those better suited to train than she was. Bull had promptly ordered a demonstration. Cari was beginning to suspect they were being used as some sort of lewd entertainment. She managed to duck one of Essa’s flagging punches, dropped beneath her guard and put an elbow in her throat a little harder than she intended.

For a moment, Essa’s eyes narrowed and Cari knew she was contemplating retaliating.

“Sister fight,” Bull confirmed her misgivings. “Hot right?”

“And them lookin’ like twins,” Sera added with a whistle.

“Maybe from behind,” Bull mused thoughtfully. “Then again, maybe not.”

Cari checked Essa’s throat for damage even as she threw a withering glare at Bull for his last comment.

Essa waved her concern away, distracting Cari from the reprimand that hid impatiently behind her teeth.

“I’m fine.” Her cough sounded suspiciously like laughter as she moved to the sideboard for a drink of water. “And I didn’t call you louts here to ogle us.”

“At least not for free,” Krem said, holding out one hand.  

The lieutenant sat comfortably enough on one of the delicate chairs that had been brought to Essa’s quarters for extra seating. His back was straight, not quite touching the cushion, but his legs stretched out in a sprawling pretense of ease. Cari watched in confusion as both Sera and Bull reached in their pockets and pulled out a coin, tossed them across the room hard enough that Cari ducked. Krem cast her a brief smile as he reached up to catch the silver.

“I’ll add it to your stash, your worship.”

Essa grinned. “Thank you, Krem. You do take care of me.”

“Someone has to.”

Cari frowned. “Is anyone going to explain this…” she paused to search for the right words, giving up when the three of them looked to her expectantly. “Unusual transaction?”

Sera snorted. “You’ll get your proper panties in a twist if we do,” she warned.

The words sounded like an insult, but the girl was smiling. Cari raised one perfectly arched brow.

“Who says I’m wearing panties?”

“Pay up,” Krem said immediately and Sera scowled, rustled up another coin. “I told you she was a good sport.”

His eyes brushed a fleeting touch to Cari’s inquisitive glance before sliding away.

“So have you seen enough?” Essa asked.

“I think so,” Krem replied. “Chief?”

“Yeah,” Bull said, and Cari tried not to foresee her own doom in his agreement. “We’re good.”

Essa dropped into the nearest chair, face flushed lightly from exertion.

“I’m sorry,” she added with a pleased laugh. “That’s all I have right now.”

Cari stepped to the sideboard and began pouring wine for the five of them.

“No apologies, your worship,” Krem rebuffed her easily. He made the honorific sound easy and familiar rather than reverent. “You’re looking better.  Nice to see some color in your cheeks. We’ll train her.”

“Train you,” he corrected more quietly as Cari brought him a goblet. “Thank you, my lady.”

“You’re welcome, S—“ She stopped. He had asked her not to call him “ser.” “Krem.”

“Flirt on your own time.” Bull’s voice crossed the large space with all the deftness of an ox.

“It’s my time,” Essa threw back before he could say more. “And just because you don’t understand subtlety, doesn’t mean you get to accuse everyone else of it. Sometimes folks are just being polite.”

“And she’d know,” Sera chimed in. “Being raised in a barn and all.”

The four of them laughed. Cari stood facing the sideboard, hand poised on the goblet left for Bull. It would look like a child’s toy cup in his grasp.

“Can’t have her in the yard though,” Krem mused.

“Not yet,” Bull agreed. Cari turned toward the Qunari, watched his shoulders roll in an imposing stretch that made Essa’s big bed look like a child’s trundle. “She’ll cause a distraction that Cullen won’t thank us for.”

Cari held the goblet out to him wordlessly. She had not yet decided the how to address him. Perhaps training in a more private space was a good idea.

“They’re calling you pretty,” Essa explained so helpfully Cari could only assume she had noticed a look of distress that Cari hadn’t quite managed to hide.

A faint blush crept across Krem’s cheeks as Cari turned away from the room again, hoping that any extra blood to her face would be mistaken for exertion.  

“Don’t tease the chantry sister.” Sera surprised her by grousing on Cari’s behalf.

She could see everything from her perch, Cari realized.  She thanked Sera by throwing a wineskin to her instead of forcing her to come down for a cup.

“Leliana was a chantry sister,” Essa offered with a wide yawn.

The Iron Bull sighed, the great exhale rumbling from his chest as he sprawled back on Essa’s bed and mumbled something appreciative about redheads to the ceiling.

Cari was enjoying their banter more than she would ever admit. “How am I a distraction, but you aren’t?” she asked spinning on her heel to glare at her sister.

Essa snorted. “I was, for different reasons. But they’ve mostly gotten used to me. Plus I’m a mage. Too taboo for most of our staunch templars. You, on the other hand, are safe. Cullen found a naughty drawing of you in the barracks. You have some admirers.’”

Cari blinked down into Essa’s smiling face. She hadn’t a single notion of what to say, but Sera spared her again.

“Yeah you do,” the rogue nodded. “I hear them hoping you’ll steal their commander’s attention from our scary mage.”

She said scary like she meant it, like she was hoping Essa would prove her fears wrong, but there was no hatred tainting the word "mage." Cari wasn’t sure which part of Sera’s statement she should address first.

“He’s not her type.” Essa gulped back the last of her wine.

“What do you mean ‘not her type’?” Sera demanded. “I thought Jackboot was every proper lady’s type.”

“Too stubborn.” The reply drawled behind a yawn.

Cari wondered, not for the first time since coming to Skyhold, just how many of Essa’s compatriots made up her closest circle of confidants. She had been such a solitary child. To see her so at ease among so many was a dangerous blessing.

“Care needs quiet intensity, not all the yelling.”

“Essa,” Cari finally regained enough composure for a mild reprove. “I really don’t think we need to resurrect old nicknames, do you?”

Her sister grinned, eyelids growing heavy over sparkling grey.

“They don’t really yell that much,” Sera interjected. “Mostly it’s the looks and sighs and—“

“Sera!” Essa lifted her head from the back of the chair to glare sleepily at her friend.

“What? We’re all thinkin’ it.”

“Some of us more than others,” Bull added.

Krem chuckled and Cari couldn’t help but smile at the rarer sound.

“You think about it too much,” Essa threatened, head lolling against one heavily padded wing of the chair. “And Krem will have to charge you.”

Her eyes closed. They all watched as her breathing slowed, deep and even. It wouldn’t be long before she was asleep. The Iron Bull rolled to his feet and crossed to Essa’s chair.

“Come on, boss, back to bed.”

“I can walk,” she reminded him, not moving. “And I’m just resting. I don’t need to go back to bed. I have afternoon plans.”

“With Cullen?” Bull asked, staring down at her.

“Maybe.”

Cari hid a smile when he reached down and scooped Essa up. “Then he can wake you,” Bull decided.

“Pffftt,” Sera said. “Some tavern song that’d make.”

Essa offered only a token protest as Bull carried her back to bed, tucking her in as if she were the child she had never been.

“Here,” he said, voice tinged with laughter and affection. “Snuggle your pony.”

“I’m going to kick your ass, Bull.” Essa swatted at him sleepily and he moved the stuffed horse away. “Give it back.”

“You ever figure out where it came from?”

“Don’t care,” she muttered, finally grabbing one knitted hoof and tugging it away from him. “No one ever gave me a stuffed animal before. It was just a room full of scratchy lace and porcelain dolls and still air.”

She was snoring contentedly before the Iron Bull finished tugging off her boots. He turned back to the room, a faint scowl etched amid the scars and crags of his broad face. Cari did not know him well enough to read those lines as askance or judgment.

“Are you trying to tell me children are coddled under the Qun?” she asked instead.

“No, they are not.”

Judgment then. Cari didn’t know how much he knew, but she would warrant it was both too much and too little. “She dragged around a linen sheet when she was a child,” she told him. “It isn’t unusual for a child to carry a blanket instead of a doll.”

What else was she to say? That her mother had all but abandoned a troublesome toddler? That their father had loved and doted on the small girl, that between him and a nurse mabari Essa had every need and then some met, but that neither he nor Greta had thought about toys or handmade gifts.

“Aye,” Sera nodded. “White with purple flowers at the top.”

Cari smiled at her in surprise.

“What?” she scowled back at Cari. “We talk.”

Cari was beginning to understand that and she was trying to find the least patronizing way of saying so when Krem saved her.

“We’ll train in here for the first few weeks,” he said, jerking his chin toward the Iron Bull and waiting for a nod of agreement. “There’s space for it, and everyone has already gotten used to her worship’s quarters being less than private.”

“Right then,” Sera hopped down from her perch, landed hard enough to make Cari wince in sympathy that she did not need. “You get enough of letting Krem knock you around, I’ll bring my knives.”

“Thank you, Sera.”

“Pssh. Don’t thank me yet.”

Cari smiled. “I’ll thank you as it pleases me,” she said lifting her nose with a little sniff. She held Sera’s gaze until the girl realized she was joking.

“You’re really not a bad sort,” Sera decided, tossing Krem another coin.

*

Late that afternoon, when Cullen ascended the final bend of stairs up to Essa’s quarters, he found both the Trevelyan sisters fast asleep. Cari had dozed off on the sofa closest to the stairs, one of Essa’s tunics in her lap, her pale hands still poised over a bit of embroidery work. The flowers were a nice, if possibly wasted, touch, Cullen thought. The rich sheen of the dark purple thread was a stark contrast against fine, but plain linen.

“She’ll want you to wake her up,” Cari said, without opening her eyes.

“How long has she been asleep?”

Essa was sprawled across her bed, legs kicked out from under the covers, her stuffed horse held by fast by one hoof. She was wearing one sock and her bare foot hung off the side of the mattress. She seemed smaller in the large plain bed she had grudgingly chosen, but they were all thankful that she hadn’t mind sleeping in it for the past week.

He fully expected that to change as she regained her energy.

“About an hour.” Cari straightened with smooth, graceful lassitude. “But she made me promise to wake her if you refused ‘on some misguided notion that I need to sleep’.”

Cari’s impersonation was dead on. It cast her face too closely to treasured angles and made Cullen wary. He watched her fold her work up with quick, efficient movements.

“If there’s nothing you need…?”

The laces of social convention were still drawn with sharp precision. Cari wore the stiff formality less tightly than when she had first arrived, but she still kept him at more of distance than many of the others. She didn’t trust him. Given what little he knew of her and Essa’s brother, Cullen thought he might understand.

“No, Lady Trevelyan, thank you.”

She nodded. “Good afternoon, Commander. Don’t let her do too much.”

“She isn’t fragile.”

“No,” Cari said. “She isn’t.”

She left in a soft swish of heavy skirts and Cullen wondered if he had passed some test he hadn’t known he was being given.


	3. Heart Ties

After a year of finding her asleep in the stall of every Inquisition horse or the loft of every Inquisition barn…or even a particularly cozy corner of the battlements, Cullen was still unaccustomed to seeing Essa mostly tucked into a proper bed. He hadn’t figured her for a sprawler. Generally she slept on her side, back to her horse or the wall, limbs coiled and ready to move from slumber to defense. Now she slept on her stomach, one leg tossed over the side of the mattress, bare foot dangling. Her arms were stretched out from her body, one above her head under the pillow she kept close to her face but upon which she didn’t rest her head. The other clutched a small knitted horse of which Cullen was absurdly proud, though if anyone asked, Ola was grudgingly prepared to take credit for the anonymous gif. Only right, given how much she’d had to help him with it. The stuffed animal was the sort of sentimentality he hadn’t expected of himself or Essa.

But Cullen was getting used to being wrong.

“Are you watching me sleep?” Essa kicked out her bare foot, made light contact with the poleyn over his knee. “I didn’t think you were the sort.”

Her accusation was so in line with his own thoughts that Cullen laughed.

“This is hardly the first time I’ve watched you sleep,” he reminded her.

“Creeper,” Essa said, sounding a little like Sera. Her lips curved in a grin as she sat up, glancing quickly around the room. “Are we actually alone?”

It was the first time since her return; he could understand her surprise.

“For the time being,” Cullen replied, reaching to recover her sock from a twist of sheets. “Josie is having tea sent up. It should arrive shortly.”

He held the sock out to her and Essa took it with a smirk.

“Tea?”

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Yes, well. There was the promise of food added to it and I thought you might be hungry.”

“I am,” Essa admitted, shoving her foot into her sock. She hopped down into her boots. “Balcony?”

He supposed it was only appropriate. Their most important conversations had occurred outside. He followed her across thick carpet, too fine for either of their boots. Though she didn’t sleep there often, Essa was slowly making the room hers. There were extra bookshelves now, all filled so near to tipping that they’d had to be anchored to the stone wall. Essa’s extensive collection of books had astonished Dorian, as had the rather fanciful oil painting of a chevalier on his plunging Courser.

“Have you read this one?” Essa asked, pausing by her desk to lift a worn volume for his perusal.

Cullen chuckled. “My sister read it to us when we were children.”

Essa’s eyes narrowed. “And did you like it?”

Unlike with Cari, Cullen knew full well when he was being tested by Essa. He was confident enough that his honesty would pass this one.

“I liked the dog,” he said with a shrug. “And the maze. I’ve always loved puzzles and riddles.”

“Commander, I’m shocked,” Essa retorted in a tone that stated the exact opposite.

Cullen laughed softly. “But overall, it was the monsters I enjoyed. The adventure.  I wasn’t a fan of the mage or the girl.”

“RIGHT?!” Essa shouted so loudly that he jumped and she covered her mouth with one hand. “Sorry,” she mumbled behind it.

“That book seems to have caused quite a stir,” he continued conversationally only to have her cheeks flush deep and rose.

“Oh, Maker….” Essa still hadn’t uncovered her mouth. Cullen reached to gently tug her hand down. “Who told you?”

“Dorian.”

“Oh…no…” she sighed.

“Oh, yes,” Cullen couldn’t help smiling at her dismay. “At a rather pivotal point in our last game, I might add. ‘So, what’s this I hear about you and our fair Inquisitor discussing the finer points of supplication?’”

Essa covered her face with both hands then, head falling forward so that her hair added to the shield. The movement exposed her ears, and the uppermost curves were redder than the cheeks she was trying to hide.

“I’m so sorry.”

The words were mumbled through the spaces between her fingers. Cullen stared at the backs of her hands hoping for a sliver of her gaze. She usually wore gloves—to cover the mark, to protect from rough work and fighting injuries—but she wasn’t wearing the worn leather, and the fine, bright lines over her knuckles and wrists were a story written in a language he wanted desperately to learn. She carried brighter, thicker scars where others might wear jewels. He wanted to kiss every adornment.

“Cullen?”

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. Andraste preserve him, he had to stop thinking about her hands. “You were saying?”

“Your impersonation of Dorian is dreadful.”

“I know.”

A cheerful stomp on the stairs below announced Nadie before the girl made the first bend, tray rattling lightly. She was humming a cheerful tune, one that Cullen was quite sure Nadie’s mother would not be happy to find she knew.

“Lady Montilyet sent tea, your worship!” she called with conspicuous warning.

Essa grinned and shook her head at Cullen’s unspoken curiosity. “Thank you, Nadie. Come on up. I’m dressed this time.”

*

The spread was impressive, lots of miniature versions of hearty foods that they were both too distracted to appreciate. A wrought iron table and chairs had been added to one corner of the balcony. It was one of the few compromises about which Josie and Essa were equally pleased. She and Cullen sat together in companionable silence as he poured tea and Essa arranged biscuits and scones on the plates beside their soup bowls. It wasn’t quite a proper tea. Cullen offered thanks to the Maker.

“You wanted to know about my magic?” Essa pulled a folded piece of parchment from her pocket.  “But these are the same questions I was asked when I joined the circle. The answers are on record.”

“I wanted—That is I wasn’t certain if—“ Cullen cleared his throat, reached for his tea and took a fortifying sip. She was handling what even he knew felt like an interrogation, and she was doing so with more patience that he probably deserved.

Essa smiled thinly, popped a tartelette into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “You weren’t certain if my answers would be the same now.”

“No.” Cullen studied his soup with more devotion than pumpkin bisque warranted.

“Poor templar,” she said softly, genuine sympathy in her voice.

She reached for his hand, the slow rasp of her palm slid against his mimicking follies not yet committed. That his spoon didn’t clatter as he dropped it back into his bowl was a small miracle.

“The mage wasn’t lying. Not then, not now. I have—for whatever reason—a strong emotional connection to fire. When I reach for the Fade or the Fade reaches for me, it does so greedily, and it brings flame.”

He coughed lightly. “And how does this connect to sex for you?”

She looked startled by his boldness. He was startled by his boldness regularly enough where she was concerned that it was becoming something of a habit. Essa’s smile was fleeting, but she waited for him to see it before she gave answer. He slid his fingers between hers with careful pressure.

“My body warms. All bodies warm during sex, but I feel as though I’m burning up…” She shrugged, glanced away out over the mountains, picked idly at a tiny sandwich on her plate with her other hand. “I’ve worked on changing the associations in my head, but Bull says that I can only get so far alone, and he’s probably right. But it isn’t as if I had someone to talk to in the Circle. 'Abstinence for mages.' And I’m not exactly one who can meet for a quick encounter between rounds of the watch.”

No, Cullen didn’t imagine she was, but somehow her unusually strict adherence to Circle restrictions made him sad for her rather than pleased. He kept silent and Essa continued, comfortable enough that he envied her candor. “So I focus on other elements or no elements.  Meditation helps. I haven’t set my bunk on fire in about eight years now.”

It was his turn to look away, though the view of the mountains and the noise of the yard below did little to distract him from the images her words had conjured in his mind.

“Of course.” Her voice was calm, but she pulled her hand from his as if she were afraid of burning him. “I haven’t exactly tried any of that with a partner.”

“Essa,” Cullen didn’t recognize his own voice. Her name was a rumble of warning and want.

“No,” she whispered. “You have to let me say this before we decide anything. And I know you said that you would wait for my answer, but—“  

She broke off, energy driving her to her feet and pacing. “There are things we both need to say to each other. This is mine, and it has to be said before you can ask me again.”

“I care for you. I think about you all the time and, Andraste help me, I like you even when I want to punch you in the throat. Which,” she added sharply as if there were question. “I will never do. Unless we’re sparring or training.”

Cullen smiled slightly.

“But, Cullen, anything physical could be impossible, because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I’m afraid that if I kiss you I’ll just incinerate.”

Cullen reached for her hand on her return, was encouraged when she let him take it. He wanted to pull her down into his arms, but instead he nudged her back to her seat.

“I understand.”

“Do you?” There was no challenge in her query, but he realized then that he took Essa’s intuition for granted. Too often he felt as if she knew all of his secrets.

“I think I might,” he admitted running his free hand through his hair in a sudden attack of nerves. Cullen took a deep, shaking breath. “You’re right, there are things we need to say before we decide what to do about…”

He squeezed her hand. “Us.”

She smiled, the edges brittle with hope and despair.

“I need to tell you about Kinloch.” Cullen threw the words between them before he lost courage.

“Cullen…” She would never demand those horrors from him, and that was perhaps the only reason he felt he could share them with her.

He shook his head. “I need to,” he insisted. “If you’re willing to bear the telling. You’re not the only one with a past that—“

He broke off, stared past her at the snow-capped mountains. The ice would never thaw, not at that altitude.

“I can bear it,” Essa whispered, fingers tight on his.

Silence grew around them, thick and heavy, at odds with spring’s weightless gleanings. Essa reached for her cup, tea spilling in a fine tremble as she brought it to her lips.

“Es?”

She let go of his hand, used both of hers to steady her tea. She finished her drink off with two sharp gulps before placing the empty cup carefully back on its saucer.

“Let’s get out of here,” Essa said suddenly, leaping to her feet and upsetting the table in a rattle of dishes. She grimaced as they both put everything to rights. “Bull in a porcelain shop.”

Cullen smiled at the image, though they had both seen Bull holding a teacup; the Qunari did so with more grace than either of them.

“Come on,” she tugged on his hand. “I know we can’t go far, but we both need to get out of this keep.”


	4. Safe Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written earlier and I promised that my drabbles and one shots would find their way into the story. So here you go. :) 
> 
> Please be advised that this deals with discussion involving past trauma and sexual assault. I don’t think it is particularly graphic, but as it was definitely not the easiest thing I’ve written…*waves all the warnings*

“Sometimes,” Cullen’s words pitched into the space above them. “I feel as if I’m back there.”

The confession scattered amid the mountain wind, swirled around them in breaking eddies before vanishing into the stone. Essa didn’t touch him, though her hand lay on the ground between them, palm up in open invitation. The sky was a bright, clear blue, something found in a tube of paint. Banks of cloud had been scraped onto the canvas, bright and heavy, as if the artist had forgone brushes, wielding his palette knife against the morning until it was edged in sharp white.

“What they…offered me…” He shook his head against the hard press of rocky ground beneath their blanket she had brought. “The promises that were whispered…shoved…into my mind…they weren’t really my desires, but I responded to them. In one way or another.”

“They don’t understand,” Essa supposed softly. “That our bodies can respond separately from ourselves. I would wager that the demons thought they were showing you your deepest fantasies.”

And because they were being honest, Cullen acknowledged, “Sometimes they were.”

“But not always,” she reminded him.

“I didn’t know that at the time.” He gave the admission to the day, wondering if it would haunt him less that night. “I thought that there must have been some part of me that they could see, some part of me that wanted what they did to me—“

Essa made a small noise then and Cullen stopped speaking. He rolled to his side, holding himself up on his elbow to stare down at her averted face.

“I’m sorry, “ she muttered angrily. “I told you I could bear it. I can.”

“Essa.” Her name was a vow. “We bear it together.”

She had promised. They both knew that neither of them could carry both their pains alone.

“You won’t like what you see,” Essa cautioned.

Cullen’s breath rushed out. “Look at me.”

She turned to him then and her eyes were a blazing, searing blue. He recoiled immediately—how could he not?—and whatever she saw in the sudden harshness of his face had her rolling quickly away. Cullen held up both hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing his pull on old defenses and coming back to sit. “You did warn me.”

She nodded once, jerkily, averting her gaze as she got to her feet.

“Give me a moment,” she entreated, easing her breath in through her nose, letting it out in a slow exhale. “I’m just angry. Maker, Cullen, I can’t remember the last time I was this angry.”

She had not thought of how he had been left alone to face what had happened to him. In the aftermath of her own worst trauma, she’d had a year surrounded by people who loved her and Diar. People who could help her find the beginnings of path that led toward healing. His experiences had been dismissed, then he’d been sent to Kirkwall.

“You’re smoking,” Cullen informed her, proud of his lack of nerves.

“Keep talking,” Essa returned. “Let me pace.”

He placed his back against the mountain, stared up at the deep, still sky. The small gap she had claimed was dirt and stone and sunlight, but Essa assured him there would be grass soon.

“You know that I was sent to Kirkwall—“

“We aren’t talking about Kirkwall yet, are we?” she asked tightly. “Most of that—“

She broke off in frustration, turned to throw a sharp jab at the rock face closest to her. He heard the sharp crack of her fury falling.

“Don’t break your hand,” Cullen reproved gently. “Broken bones don’t heal easily, even with magic.”

“Kinloch,” she reminded him through her teeth.

It was a discussion that they both knew they needed to have, no matter what could or could not be nurtured in the curiously safe space that had grown too naturally between them.

“Will you come sit with me?”

She turned back to him so quickly that she stumbled. Tears had replaced the light of rage and her eyes were wide with her heart in them. Maker, preserve him, she made him wish for things he knew he could not have. Cullen held out one hand. It was shaking only slightly when she came forward to take it. He tugged once, nudged her into place beside him with a gentle elbow, a bump of knee, until they sat, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, staring up together at the cool press of cloud.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she capitulated.

“We both know that I do.”

She sighed, frustrated and worried. He knew her too well and had learned her too quickly.

“We need a word,” she determined suddenly, and he floundered to discern her meaning before she continued. “An all-stop for when one of us has had all that we can bear.”

“Alright,” he acquiesced.

“Diar,” she chose without pause. “That’s mine.”

It was appropriate enough, he thought. She would never speak his name by accident, and there were not many words that drew Cullen up so abruptly as when she said her lost husband’s name, love and regret still soft on the syllable.

“I think I’ll use the same,” he mused. “Though I may spell it differently.”

He sensed her smile, turned his gaze down to confirm the hesitant curve of her lips.

“I’m sorry that I interrupted you.” She tilted her head to tap his shoulder.

He wasn’t. The tale only grew more difficult to tell. It was a strange comfort to find that she was not as impassive with his past as she was with her own.

“Can we talk about why you are so angry?”

She shook her head. “I think we had better finish what we started, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He took a moment to collect himself and single deep breath that he slowly let it out half way. “They offered me the usual, I suppose. I can’t imagine mine was the most complicated mind they encountered in the tower. Esteem. A rapid rise to power within the Order. Recognition for my service and security for those I cared for, for my family. Passion, sex. I was promised the fulfillment of wishes that I imagine most young men make and to great excess.”

She murmured something, low and behind her teeth, a negation of what she seemed to know was coming.

“They turned my every mortal desire into something abhorrent and depraved.”

She clung tightly to his hand, and Cullen’s words broke. He wasn’t sure if the trembling that spread between them started with him or her.

“Did you hate your body after that?” she asked, pressing close to his side, more like a hound than a person; it was a strange comfort.

Cullen glanced to her as her works sank in, his instant of surprise turning to understanding. Of course she would know.

“I did,” he sighed. “I punished myself with denial and self-loathing. Sometime after I arrived in Kirkwall, I found the coldest depth of my anger. I decided that I was not going to keep punishing myself for what the blood mages and abominations at Kinloch had done to me. I tried to take back that part of my life, but—“

His lips twisted the words off with a wry grimace. “Let’s just say the experiences were never satisfying for any involved.”

He had given up when he realized that his self-flagellation was coming dangerously close to perpetrating violence on others. There was an irony there that still woke him in the night.

“I devoted myself to my work.” He forced a perfunctory tone. “And focused my energies elsewhere.”

“You chose celibacy?” Essa asked, astounded.

Cullen smiled then, was surprised to find that mirth was not a bitter dredge upon his lips.

“I would think that you, of all people, would believe me,” he answered with a smirk.

“You didn’t believe me!” Essa chided hotly, feigning insult.

He let her reach for the gift of her humor, let her pull it around both of them, soothing their clamoring nerves with the comfort of an old blanket. Her hand steadied in his; Cullen took a breath and fought to win his own stillness.

“You’ll recall,” he related, voice hesitantly teasing. “You told me yourself that you are not repulsed by the idea of sex.”

She laughed. Maker!  He hoped one day he could laugh off the consequences of his nightmares as determinedly as she did her own.

“I’m not,” she agreed. “You are?”

“Maybe,” Cullen told her, fortified by her bold honesty. “I’m not certain. There was a time I found the idea of touching another person in passion repellent. Then there was a time when I wanted to just fuck away my demons.”

The coarse language roughened his voice, perverted it into something ugly from his past. Essa’s fingers tightened, dragged him back from his own darkness.

“But now, it’s just a hunger like any other. Sometimes the body needs food, sometimes it needs a release. It just is. Do you understand?”

“I do,” she said with a nod. “The body is a tool. You feed it, water it, keep it clean, stretched, strong, rid it of tension when you can.”

Her voice droned, growing theatrically monotonous until he found himself chuckling.

“That sounds terrible,” Cullen declared. “But you’re not wrong.”

“It is terrible.” She tipped her head back against the grey stone behind them with a dull clunk. “I spent nearly ten years in the Circle thinking that I had finally bored my desires to the death of routine, but ever since I left it’s been a pretty constant want want want.”

He knew that too well, and hoped her cravings were not similar, but they would have to speak of that another time.

“This hasn’t been so difficult for me,” Cullen admitted. “I don’t believe I could enjoy a casual dalliance, not with my past, and I have not wanted anything more than that.”

She nodded, and he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, waiting for her to meet his gaze.

“So many wants?”

He was curious, rather than judgmental. Essa rewarded him with a playful pop on the arm.

“Not exactly.” She rolled her eyes at him in mock exasperation.  “Just frequency of desire. Though I must admit, I look at Bull sometimes and I am a little curious.”

His bark of laughter echoed off the mountain and Essa grinned.

“Of course, he would probably break me into pieces, as unpracticed as I am, and he would probably feel terrible about it. You know…if I didn’t catch fire first.” She snickered ruefully. “I do wish it were as easy for me as it is among his people.  But, I…reacted badly to the last person who tried to kiss me. It was even a kiss I thought I wanted.”

“I know a little of what that’s like.”

She nodded. “I can’t heap all of this,” she gestured to her head with her free hand. “On someone else’s doorstep. I know that I owe you an apology for considering—“

“Don’t,” Cullen interjected. “It was a dream, and one I don’t regret sharing. We have something special between us. There are few simple truths more complicated. Who knows what it could have been in another life?”

He reached for their joined hands, transferred the clinging laces of her fingers from one hand to the other. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close and she let him, snuggling in against his chest. Her hair smelled like lemon balm and frost.

“I thought that you would smell like smoke,” he murmured against her temple.

“Only when I’m fighting.”


	5. Things We Carry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally! :) Drabble that falls just after Safe Words and before Chapter Three of Convalescence. I hope this is all falling as neatly into place for all of you as it is for me. I would love to hear your thoughts!

“You carry it here,” Essa said, leaning forward for a breath to place her hand over Cullen’s heart. “The monster in your head, the monster you fear everyone else sees.”

She sat back, breaking the brief contact. He could still feel the warmth of her radiating through his armor. He wondered if she had touched his skin, would he have been burned? She didn’t wait for his reply. She had a knack for knowing when he would give one and when he needed her to explain herself. He had still not figured out how she could understand so easily the beast within him.

“It’s funny,” Essa continued, settling back against Geri’s front legs. Cullen felt his heart ease at the familiar sight. They had all worried at her reluctance to return to the barn after Smoke's death.  _Give her time,_ Master Dennet had assured them.  _Saw the same thing with my Seanna when she lost her first pony. Won't be long before the she misses them more than she hurts._

“We think that all of who we are exists in our heads," Essa dragged him from his thoughts. "But that’s only part of us.”

In the past few days she had attempted—for the so manyth time Cullen had lost count—to sneak the horse out of Skyhold and to her small private pasture. Spring had set upon the Frostbacks with belligerent hope and most of the animals enjoyed a pasture rotation not far from Haven, but Essa struggled with letting the Forder go for weeks at the time. The small gap that she had found was about a half hour’s descent from the keep and twice the size of Skyhold’s garden. It was damp and cool, sheltered from the north wind, but flooded with afternoon light. The grass she had promised had sprouted up in a pair of warm nights; it would soon grow thick and bright, a bold slash of green among the jagged grey stone. Cullen suspected she had sown the rye herself. Essa had begun making twice daily trips, sometimes with Cullen, sometimes with Geri, sometimes alone. For the latter two, Leliana usually sent someone discreet to watch out for her but not invade her privacy. 

Cullen had chosen the duty for himself today. With less sneaking.

“And the rest of us?” he asked.

Essa shrugged, and reached for one of the sandwiches he had brought for them. “Whether we like it or not, the rest of us is what we do. How we treat others.”

He frowned and Essa nearly reached for his hand. Geri shifted, broad jaw bumping her knee. Cullen watched her eyes warm as she reached up to scratch the horse’s neck.

“I have a history of mistreating mages,” he reminded her, a touch sharply.

“You do,” she agreed easily. “But even if you wrote every transgression down in the blackest ink, Cullen, it wouldn’t equal the darkness of what you carry. Are you the Maker to punish a man for his thoughts and fears?”

She took a bite of her sandwich. He watched her pull off a piece of bread crust for Geri. The horse raised his head, lipped softly at her palm before snagging the offering. There was a bond between them that he did not understand. Horses were beasts of burden, tools to be cared for carefully but used.

Essa was more likely to treat people so than the four-legged folk. 

“You can’t make me a better man by wishing,” Cullen said quietly. “Believe me, Essa, I have tried, but I know what I was.”

She crawled across the scant ground that separated them, heedless of the grass stains and the mud that gathered on her hands and legs. She sat up on her knees when she reached him, brushing her hands off against her thighs. He couldn’t stop his smile; Josie was going to kill her when she saw all the dirt.

“You know only how you felt,” Essa pointed out. “You don’t know who you were. But you’re finally trying to figure it out and that helps.”

She reached for his face, cupped his jaw in her hands.

“Now close your eyes,” she ordered. “We have to head back soon and you’ve brooded yourself into a well-founded headache that I can’t let you keep.”

He closed his eyes on a sigh, felt the gentle warmth of her healing magic slid into his skin.

“Es?” He had only just started using the diminutive.

“Cully?” She always responded with Sera’s nickname for him; he supposed it only fair.

“I think you’re the best friend I have ever had.”

For a heartbeat, he felt the tips of her fingers press firm against his neck, a careful embrace.

“I would think that boded poorly for you,” she replied with her characteristic dry humor. “If I didn’t love you so much.”


	6. Honorable Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen and Essa have somehow ended up on the same (WRONG) page again. Luckily Sera is around to save the day.

“So lemme get this right,” Sera’s disbelief was the angry lilt of an untuned, badly played lute. “After pining away all winter, you spend a couple hours alone together and decide that you  _aren’t_  gonna give it a go?”

She stormed around Cullen’s office, and he would have sent her away if for the last hour he had been able to do anything more than staring blearily at his paperwork. 

“Sera…“ She rounded on him in a temper and Cullen sighed. “The Inquisitor and I feel—that is—we decided that anything between us would be too complicated at present.”

She glared at him and Cullen knew she had caught the half-truth. He and Essa hadn’t decided anything. Not together. They had spent more time alone with each other than ever in the last week, spilled truths in the shadow of the mountains until they both lay bare and—somehow—they found the weight of their pasts lighter for the sharing. But the more they talked, the more impossible anything else between them seemed. He wanted her—Maker! How he wanted her—but not so much that he would chance causing her more grief than she already carried.  Maybe they were better as they were now: more than friends, not quite anything else.

“There is a war going on,” Cullen continued, as if he himself didn’t believe he was full of—

“Bloody bullshit!” Yes, that. “Wouldna pegged either of you for fickle, Jackboot.”

Her eyes narrowed as he shuffled a stack of parchment, clearing his desk after a long afternoon of reading and forwarding countless orders and reports. Sera stomped over, shoving him aside with one narrow hip and opening the bottom desk drawer.

“I knew it,” she muttered. From the dark recesses she plucked a single sheet of parchment folded in meticulous thirds and sealed since spring first whispered promises to the Frostbacks.

“You change your mind?” Sera demanded, shaking the letter at his head. “After all your and Essa’s talkin’?”

Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t.”

It was useless arguing with her. Especially when she was starting to make a terrible sort of sense. Obviously, he had been spent too much time in Sera’s company.

“So you’re scared then?” She shook the letter again for emphasis, parchment waving perilously close to a burning candle. The flame spit and guttered, sending up a gout of black smoke in a plea for its life. Cullen snagged the letter from Sera quickly, hands running over the ivory surface as if to put out a fire that hadn’t caught. “Ptthbt! ‘Swhat I thought.”

“I’m cautious,” Cullen corrected.

“Rubbish,” Sera announced, spinning to perch on his unused desk chair. “Give her the letter, Jackboot. And that bit o’ starlight you finally finished.”

“How did you know…?”

She kicked a foot towards the desk drawer she had left open. Cullen reached inside, was unsurprised when his fingers brushed an object he hadn’t stored.

“It’s a puzzle box,” Sera said as he lifted out an ornate silver cube half again as large as his fist. “A little bit of clever from that bit of clever in the undercroft. Figured Es would like it. She likes puzzles too.”

Cullen turned the box over, held it toward the light and tried to find the mechanism by which it opened and shut.

“Her first, you arse,” Sera snatched it from him, fingers dancing to shift geometric shapes into a sequence she wouldn’t let him see. It opened soundlessly and she parted folds of smooth leather to show him the scarf, fine glittering knit nestled carefully in its bed.

“When did you—?” He had only finished the thing a week ago. Torn between feeling utterly bullied and oddly comforted, Cullen threw his hands in the air.  “Traitor.”

“Am not.” Sera folded the leather back down over the scarf, closed the box with a determined snap, and tossed it back to him. “You’d dig in your heels more if you didn’t know I was right. Give it to her. And the letter. Before she leaves. Again.”

 _And doesn't come back._ The words hung unsaid and more ominous for the silence.

Cullen sighed, rubbed wearily at aching neck muscles. “I’ll think about it,” he promised.

Sera jerked her chin at him in annoyance, and hopped up before he could make an attempt at conciliation.

“Es matters.” She stabbed him with an uncommonly earnest stare. “ _You_  matter.”

She stalked toward one of the exits. “Would make it a whole lot easier on me and some others if you two just mattered together.”

“Easier on  _you_?” Cullen called as she opened the door.

“Just bed the wench and be done with it!” Sera hollered. “All your brooding is giving me headaches.”

She stepped outside, slamming the door behind her. Cullen stared after her, rubbing at what was now a constant ache in his own skull. The girl was maddening. And yet somehow, they had grown on each other. Like mold, Sera said, and she was probably right. Such an odd champion, that one, but as improbable as it was, she seemed to be his.

“Sera!”

He was halfway to the door when it opened. Sera leaned in, head floating along the edge, suspicion in her wide eyes.

“Would you deliver this to the Inquisitor, please?” He managed the request with a muster of humility. She would enjoy it, and he owed her that much for…well using the words “talking” and “sense” with Sera as the deliverer of such a lecture just didn’t bear thinking on.

She grinned at him. “Frigging right, I will!”

She took the letter and the puzzle box from him more carefully than he expected.

“Discreetly.” Cullen added.

“Pttbbbt!” Sera replied.

 *

Essa rubbed her eyes, stared at the report before her—again—and waited for the page to come back into focus. They had been working for too many hours now. Cullen—the lucky jerk—had enough of his own duties to attend that he had made an escape after dinner, but Essa was still hopelessly at the mercy of her remaining advisers. She had answered every question she had been given and was reading a long summary of scouting reports from the Western Approach. Well, she was trying to. Leliana’s elegant penmanship remained blurred. Essa sighed and placed the parchment aside before reaching for another. Cullen’s handwriting was more distracting, but easier to read, as bold and uncluttered as his contributions to their meetings. He didn’t dance around in graceful sentences, and if he feinted with his words, it was only for the brief pause before he struck a point more forcibly.

Essa sighed again, hard enough to make the candles on her desk flicker in protest. _Definitely_ more distracting.

“I’m sorry, Josie, we’ll have to pick this up tomorrow.” She was not usually the first to bow out, but if she didn’t get some quiet, and soon, she was going to have to spend the rest of the night in the training yard hitting something.

The soft rise and fall of the ambassador’s words dwindled into foam. “Of course, Inquisitor, I should have realized.” Josie glanced toward the water clock. It was nearly midnight. Essa didn’t need to look to know; she had been all but counting the minutes since tenth bell. “It has gone quite late. I am sure we’re all tired.”

Leliana made a small noise of agreement that Essa suspected was for her benefit. She was leaving for the Hinterlands in less than two days, a brief set of missions which she knew to be a not-so-subtle test meant to assure Cassandra and Cullen that she was battle-ready. She needed to leave for Orlais soon. Hawke and Stroud would be waiting, if they weren’t already.

“Have you been sleeping well?” Josie asked concern touching her dark eyes as Essa began putting herself and her poor over-worked desk to rights.

She knew that she had frightened them all, but Essa was tired of trying to convince them that she had no need of further convalescence. It was especially arduous when she was her biggest impediment, yawning into her work, half lying across her desk. 

"Yes, of course.”

Though not last night. Last night she had woken sweaty and trapped in her bed—her mind and body’s way of telling her that was more than enough of that. Essa still couldn’t shake the feeling that her dreams had been something out of the ordinary. She had wandered the keep, gulping in the cool, spring air, trying vainly to catch the ends of gossamer webs before she was too awake to remember them.  

“Inquisitor?”

Essa managed a smile. “I’m fine,” she wasn’t certain who she was trying to reassure; she had barely registered the query. “I just need a long hot bath and a good night’s sleep.”

“Outside.” Cassandra added so drily that Essa snickered.

“Our lady seeker knows me too well.”

Cassandra sighed as if that knowledge were a great imposition.

“Shall I send someone to fill your bath?” Josie's lips fell into a delicate grimace as she silently retracted the offer. “Do you have everything you need?”

She didn’t, but Essa could hardly confess such in present company. She needed reassurances she dared not ask for, answers to questions she was too afraid to ask. An imperceptible distance had risen between her and Cullen after their last talk, as if they had each taken a step back when she wasn’t looking. The expanse couldn’t have been more than an arm’s length, but it was limned in pale sorrows, shrouded in loss before the finding. She had searched for him the night before, when her thoughts were tangled and lost amid nightmare persistence, but he had not been at prayers and his office door had been locked.

“Essa,” Leliana’s voice was soft and coaxing as she repeated Josie’s last question. “Do you have everything you need?

“I do.” She had filled the tub earlier that day, hoping for an hour’s solitude that she been interrupted before she could enjoy. “Good night, ladies.”

She didn’t walk them down the stairs, or even to the head of them. Essa was too weary for the niceties that Cari insisted were always paramount. Today was not her best day as Inquisitor. She’d had worse, of course, but today had been endless tedium heaped on top of too little sleep and too many doubts. Essa stepped into the washroom, was half undressed with one hand heating the water before she realized she wasn’t alone.

“How much am I gonna owe Krem for this?” Sera asked from the doorway, making a few mildly obscene noises that Essa chose to take as compliments.

She glanced back over her shoulder, the tired retort on her lips dying like untended embers. Sera held up a bottle of whiskey and waggled her brows. “I brought booze and a present.”

Essa smiled. “Then we’ll call it an even trade,” she said, shrugging out of her final layers.

“Nice,” Sera replied, and Essa was mostly certain she meant the trade. Sera might joke about ogling her, but Essa wasn’t Sera’s type. ‘Too magey.’ “You might actually know your worth, Es.”

She pulled her other arm from behind her back, held out a small silver box toward the tub. Any other day, Essa would have leapt for it.

“Is that a puzzle box?” She sank down into the tub before Sera could answer. She was curious, but she didn’t care if the box held a new left hand, she wasn’t moving until she was water-logged. She leaned back, head resting on the edge, chin just above the water line. The heat would have been scalding to another; it slowly began to ease Essa’s worry-worn muscles.

“You know it.” Sera clunked the box on the small table beside tub and flopped down on the floor. “You drinkin’?”

“You know it,” Essa echoed. “Just don’t let me drown if I pass out.”

Sera snickered. “No worries there,” she assured her, wrestling with the cork. “I’d make a proper fuss to the right parties. Get Jackboot to your rescue.”

There was a thought. Essa reached for a bottle of bath oil, uncorked the small bottle and sniffed carefully. Rosemary and mint, had to be a gift from Vivienne. Perhaps Cassandra. Few others were as considerate of Essa’s preferences. She poured a generous measure into the tub, swirled lazy eddies until the fragrance rose bright and pleasant with the rising steam.

“Tingly,” Sera observed.

"Mmhmm..." Essa closed her eyes. 

They sat in silence, passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth companionable between them.

“Have you talked to him?” Essa was too tired to resist asking; she was grateful when Sera didn’t play coy. She could have. Another night and she might have.

“Yeah. Even got a letter for you.”

“A letter?” To her utter dismay, Essa felt her eyes well up with tears. She squeezed her eyelids more tightly closed, splashed water on her face until she was reasonably certain Sera wouldn't notice when she sat up blinking.  She yanked the bottle from Sera’s hand.

Sera eyed her shrewdly as Essa took a too-large swig. “You think you messed it all up too, right?”

"Too?" Essa coughed as the liquor burned into the back of her nose, scoured her throat clean of anything else she might have said.

Sera sighed. Loudly. A torrent of exasperation in that single exhalation. “Don’ know what you two would do without me,” she muttered. She reached in her pocket, waved a piece of parchment toward the tub.

Essa’s heart stumbled as the Sera waved the letter through the steam. “Don’t you dare drop it.”

Sera laughed. “Worry wart.” She pulled Cullen's letter back from danger and teased the weakened wax seal with one fingertip. “Want me to read it to you? You think Jackboot wrote you any banging bits?”

She laughed, but Essa didn't join her. Fear swept in stinging lines through her weary body.

“He wouldn’t,” Sera groused, answering her own question. “Not him.”

“Sera…” Essa would have already climbed from the tub if her legs had gone suddenly and utterly boneless.

“Watch your underpants,” Sera retorted; she glanced toward the tub. “Oh, right.” Another giggle.

Essa breathed a sigh of relief as Sera placed the parchment safely on top of one of the trunks.

“Just so you know, the box is from me and Dagna,” she informed Essa proudly. “But the bit inside is from Cully Wully.”

“What?” Essa reached for the box, but Sera snatched it away.

“Don’t go gettin’ it all wet,” she smirked. “Read the letter first, and then go see him. And if that daft tit locks his doors again, you come get me. I’ll bring my tools.”

 


	7. Letter of Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bonus for those wanting to know about the contents of the letter and what happens after Essa reads it. Written in first person from Essa's point of view.

_Essa_. My name was formed of bold curves and graceful loops, bold and elegant in ways that my scrawling signature would never be. The tip of my finger hovered, tracing the air above each letter. The ink was long dried, but I feared that I would smudge them with a careless touch. The words that followed were not nearly as fanciful as my name, but as I tried to read  _Fin has asked me of my intentions…_ I kept coming back to that single word at the top of the page.  My fingers skimmed closer—gathering courage or losing patience—I ran my fingertip along the upper rise of the  _E,_ feeling the deep indentations made by a smooth nib. I wondered just how many times Cullen had traced those letters, black limning black until the darkness stood brightly upon the page. I thought of how his lips wrapped around those same two syllables, curving with a smile or lifting with a curse, but always he spoke as if he had found some strange, relentless certainty.

_I wish that I knew what answer to give him, but whatever words I have, they are first for you._

I glanced up at the date. There had been another—today’s in fact—written on the front of the folded parchment just below the seal, along with a hastily jotted  _nothing has changed_.  But the letter had been written in late winter, not long before my return to Skyhold, and well after so many letters had flown back and forth across Ferelden bearing stories we had not been ready to share face to face.

 _I cannot make you promises, and if I were so foolish, I do not believe that you would accept them._ Something had been crossed out.  _I have written this out twice and it’s still impossible to say with any grace._ I smiled, I could almost hear Cullen’s frustration.  _Promises are for those with futures. I don’t know what the future holds. For either of us. I still struggle to free myself from my past. Each day is only today. One after the other without thought for the next beyond what time means to a moving army. For myself, there is only ever today._

_Today there is the hope of spring in Skyhold. Today, for the moment, I am content with who I am, and that is a rare and precious feeling. Today I miss you , and while I still do not know what I would say to Fin, were you here I would simply say_

_Today is yours. As am I._

_Cullen_

The parchment rattled in my grasp, and I dropped the letter to the bed, hands shaking too hard to hold on without doing damage. My heart was pounding, and hope fought lingering uncertainty, choking my breath to a desperate gasp around their battle. I stumbled to my feet, knee catching in the long skirt of my robe in my haste. The near fall drew me up, forced my body to wait for my mind to join the march. I tied the belt of my robe more tightly, pulled the long hem up and tucked it with some small measure of the artfulness that Dorian had taught me. I thought better of leaving the letter where it was and folded it as carefully as I could before sliding it into the deep pocket of my robe.

I took a slow breath that did nothing to calm me, spared a glance for neither my appearance, nor the time. Sera had sad to read the letter, then go to him.

I never followed an order so gladly in my life.

*

He was asleep, deep and dreamless, and I couldn’t bring myself to stop watching him. Couldn’t stop tracing the line of his jaw, the soft curve of lips that were—for the moment—neither smirking nor sneering. He didn’t seem real like this, lines smoothed by hard-won rest. He should have looked younger, but instead he looked like a tomb sculpture, vitality trapped in curves of marble. His face was surely the finest of the Maker’s art, but it twisted something broken in me to see it locked in cold repose.

I was in love with him, I realized, and I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry to herald my utter forsaking of all reason. It was far too soon to speak of love. Wasn’t it?

“Essa?”

I took the final two steps to the edge of his bed before I realized my error. Cullen wasn’t awake, and I hadn’t made nearly enough noise with my bare feet. My breath was still trapped behind the soft sigh of my name in his dreams. I took a stutter step back and called to him.

He moved from sleep to violence faster than I could have ever hoped to, a whisper of death beneath the clouded moonlight, and my heart broke, because whatever nightmare he had woken into was my fault, my own stupid carelessness.

“Cullen, it’s me.”

I wasn’t far enough away to attempt to run—not that I would have been anyway, how had I not known how fast the man was? I wasn’t surprised when his hands closed on my arms, or when I was dragged beneath the hard press of his body. I expected a knife to my throat, or forearm hard against my windpipe. They were my preferred greetings for those foolish or ignorant enough to wake me from my nature, though I didn’t have the body mass to go straight for pinning.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, voice rough with memories.

I wondered if they were the nightmares he had already shared with me or something new. Something that wore my face and pulled my name into the darkest watches of the night.

“Being stupid,” I admitted, chest aching with my own foolishness and other things I wouldn’t name. “Cullen, I’m sorry.”

He pinned one of my hands between us to free his outside hand. I lay still, listening as he fumbled to light the candle beside his bed. I smiled a little when he leaned farther over, his position more precarious as he released my other hand in order to have both of his free. When the flame caught, Cullen settled back over me. The fire reached for me greedily and I watched it burn bright and golden in the tawny depths of Cullen’s eyes.

“This is not how I pictured getting you into my bed.”

His voice rolled through me, traveling from his chest and into mine with the certainty of stone, slow and unyielding. I blinked. Once. Twice. Waited for him to get angry with me, to laugh at me, to take back the words or declare them an impulsive quip. Instead he was calmer than I was, and he watched me too closely.

“You’ve…”

But I couldn’t bring myself to finish the brazen query, couldn’t get my feet back under me, because all I could think about was how perfectly our body’s fit, negative and positives with no room for space or contrast. I licked my lips nervously and watched him track the movement with a gleam that too closely mirrored the wildness he had once reproved in my eyes.

“I have,” he admitted. Darkly. Richly.

His pupils were too big, the press of his chest to mine was too much, and the heat that grew between us threatened to devour precious air. He leaned up enough to release my hands from the cage of us, but instead of scrambling for leverage or pushing him away, the traitorous things hovered over the tightly strung muscles in his arms. I lifted my lips for the promise of destruction, repeated every rationalization I could think of for why this wasn’t the worst idea I’d had lately.

Cullen’s lips ghosted over mine. I could almost taste the warmth of him.

“You’re cold.” He rolled away from me and I watched him teeter on the edge of his dream. “Why do you feel cold?”

I scrambled to my knees on the bed, but he had already gained his feet. I had a dozen reasons—not the least of which was that the man’s hands were warm for the first time since I’d met him—but I didn’t have time to articulate any of them. He was already reaching for his sword. I saw the confusion cloud his eyes and my breath shredded, memory’s claws all the sharper as I watched them tear into him.

“Cullen.” I knew what it was to be trapped in a waking nightmare that felt all too real.

“Do not speak to me.”

His words were colder than I was. Another step back and he would have a sword in his hand. I would be left with only my dagger or my magic to defend myself and I knew that we would both end up with scars before that was over.

I sighed. “I’m sorry for this,” I said.

Then I grabbed the tankard by the bed and threw its contents at his face.


	8. Magefire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter precedes the canon First Kiss.

Cullen awoke with a throbbing headache, one wholly new and terrible, lodged firmly between his left ear and temple. It ached from the outside in, rather than the inside out, and when he reached to gingerly touch the side of his face, Cullen found a flare of heat, bright and tender.  His brow furrowed with confusion, but that only made the pain worse.

“Good morning,” Cassandra’s bored tone greeted him before he dragged heavy lids up to meet a sky that was just beginning to lighten toward leaded-grey.

“Only just,” Cullen replied, voice gravelly from sleep. He turned warily towards her, stared through the familiar shadows of his loft. Cassandra lounged against the far wall, her posture a deliberate approximation of relaxed. “Why are you here?”

For a moment his fears thundered in his head, loss of time, gaps in memory. He sat up, blanket sliding to his lap, before he caught it, dragged it back up with a grimace that Cassandra politely ignored. He wasn’t dressed. Whatever had happened, he couldn’t have been out long or someone would have put him in more than his bed covers.

“Did I...?” Hurt anyone. He would find the courage to ask the question in full if she did not explain things soon.

“Of course not,” Cassandra huffed. “The Inquisitor knocked you out.”

“The—She what?!“ His voice broke over the exclamation.

Cullen cleared his throat, but shock and worry nearly choked him. He reached for the tankard of water he kept by his bed and—

“Maker’s breath!” It hadn’t been a dream. Essa had come to him in the night and he had—

The thought didn’t bear completing. Cullen covered his face with both hands, willing himself to wake up. Again. But there were flashes now, fragmented memories with faded edges that in no way lessened their ability to wound. Essa coming to him in the dark, eyes soft. He had thought that he was dreaming—Maker knew he had dreamed of having her in his bed so many times that he had lost count and grown bored with self-chastisement—but her body had been cold, almost shivering beneath him. Cullen had known then that she was a nightmare.

And now, he knew that she was real.

“Is she alright?” he asked, dread coiling so tightly in his belly that his body began to shake with it.

Cassandra chuckled. “She is fine, Cullen. She broke a finger on your skull and can currently be found pacing a moat around your desk.  She alternates between blaming herself for her poor form and worrying that you will not forgive her for breaking her promise. She seems less concerned with the part where she actually had to hit you.”

Cullen slowly lowered his hands. His heart was still beating too quickly. He forced his breath into a steady rhythm. She was fine. No matter what had happened, Essa was fine.

“What promise?” he asked, calmer now, as if he wasn’t watching the hope of them crumble in his hands.

“I believe she mentioned something about never punching you?” Cassandra grunted. “Though why an intelligent woman like Essa would give such an oath, I cannot say.”

 _Unless we’re sparring or training_. Her words drifted back to him from earlier in the week. She had given them with a teasing smile, one more hesitant than her usual, as if she were coaxing him to understand that she would not lift her hand to him in anger. As if he had needed the reassurance.

Cullen scrubbed his hand through his hair. “She did…Cassandra, I—“

It had to be confessed, what he had done. Cullen gathered what courage he could, held it tightly in fists that had not yet ceased their infernal trembling.

She held up on hand. “Essa told me what happened. Would you like for me to repeat it to you so that you can stop fearing the worst?”

“I attacked her, Cassandra.” The words were a curse. They slithered into the shadowed room carrying memory’s venom.

“You did not,” Cassandra retorted, glaring so fiercely at him that Cullen wanted to believe her. “You were startled from a very deep sleep by a woman who has--more than once--nearly managed to take Sister Leliana by surprise. Her hands were cold. We both know how unusual that is. You reacted as too many of us would have.”

Cullen couldn’t help finding Cassandra’s notion of comfort lacking.

“But Essa—”

“Handled the misunderstanding perfectly,” she declared, interrupting him again.

“She was not defenseless,” she reminded him. “She could have gone for her knife or her magic, but instead she used her wits and her fist. She is a good match for you.”

Cassandra was as near to smirking as Cullen had ever seen.  He gaped at her, trying to corral the wild race of his thoughts. His fears whispered that something terrible had nearly happened when Essa walked in through the fog of his dreams, but Cassandra did not seem concerned in the least. Cullen trusted her, had vowed to trust her.  Even if she cared nothing for his own peace—and he believed she did—surely Cassandra would not allow him to endanger the Inquisitor.  

“Speak with her,” she ordered, pushing off of the wall and pacing to the ladder. “You will see for yourself.  Perhaps you can get her to heal her hand. She seems to think of her injury as some sort of penance. A foolish sentiment that I imagine you share.”

Cullen was still trying to formulate a reply when she snorted at him and began her descent.

*

The door closed behind her and Cullen could hear Essa pacing down in his office. The deliberate noise she made, no doubt for his benefit, carried up to the loft. Cullen tucked his gloves into his belt and began the first of exactly ten long, deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, mentally repeating the Chant until he no longer felt trapped behind nerves or the hazy, insubstantial lingering of those first moments beyond encompassing dreams.

“Cullen?” Essa’s voice drifted up to him. She didn’t sound as if she never wanted to speak to him again, he took that as encouragement.

“I’m on the way down.” He rubbed his palms on the legs of his pants.

“Thank the Maker,” she sighed loudly. “I thought that you might try to wait me out.”

Cullen chuckled ruefully. “No,” he assured her as he began the climb. “I believe Cassandra’s wrath would be worse than anything we might stumble through together at this point.”

“How is your head?” Essa asked before his face dropped below the plane of the loft’s floor. He paused on the ladder, not quite ready to meet her eyes.

“Not as bad as your hand. Cassandra said you broke your finger.”

“Poor form on my part,” she grumbled.

Cullen felt the ladder shift and could only assume she had kicked it. He was smiling as he continued his descent.

“I’ve never actually knocked someone out on purpose,” Essa continued in annoyance. “It isn’t nearly as easy as books would have you believe. I bet Bull knows some secret Qunari pinch or something that would have worked better.”

“You will have to share that knowledge if he does,” Cullen mused. “You could have cast…“

The words knotted, became a jumble on his tongue that he had the sense to bite back. He hadn’t expected her to be so close, but as he stepped to the floor Cullen found Essa standing on the other side of the ladder, less than an arm’s length away.

“No,” she shook her head, stared up between the rungs to meet his gaze.  “I know that I broke my word to you, punching you in the head and all, and I’m sorry for that, but, Cullen…”

She sighed. “I will not attack you with my magic. Ever. Do you understand? I give you and the Maker that vow—”

Cullen reached through the ladder, stopped her promise with a soft touch of one finger to her bottom lip.

“Slow down.” Her earnestness would be his undoing one day. “I’m not certain where we should start, but vows before the Maker can’t be quite it.”

She smiled and placed a kiss on his finger before stepping back slightly. Candlelight slid between them, tawny shadows teasing across her face.

“Oh, Cullen. Your poor head!” She covered her mouth with her left hand, eyes sparkling above her fingers.

“It’s no more than I deserve,” he assured her wryly.

She reached for him before he could step around the ladder. The motion so quick and instinctive that he would have smiled had he not watched pain cloud her eyes. She stopped halfway through the extension, brow furrowed in a grimace, fingers just brushing the ladder rung that threatened his line of sight. Cullen reached through the ladder and caught her wrist.

“May I?”

Essa nodded and he pulled her arm toward him, resting her wrist and palm on the rung and allowing ladder hold the weight of her wounded hand as he carefully examined her fingers.

“That must have been some hit,” he murmured.

Most of her hand was swollen, her forefinger twisted and bruised. Essa had snapped it clean; she was lucky that the bone hadn’t broken through her skin.

“It was.” She stepped forward and grabbed the side of the ladder with her left hand, knuckles white beneath her grip. “Probably harder than I should have hit you,” she added through her teeth. “But I figured I only had the one strike.”

A man was too far gone when he took comfort in such brutal logic. Cullen smiled slightly. “Shall I set it?”

“Please,” Essa muttered. “I tried earlier, but that’s easier wished than done. You said we shouldn’t start with vows.” She winced as he ran his fingertips along the side of her finger. “Where should we?”

“I have a few questions,” Cullen suggested.

Essa nodded. “Of course.”

“Why did you punch me?” he asked.

She blinked, the query obviously not what she had been expecting. “Do you not remember?” she asked in a worried rush. “Didn’t Cassandra—?”

Her words ended abruptly with a scowl of confusion. As he watched her thoughts chase each other in her eyes, Cullen aligned the bones in her finger with one swift snap. Essa’s face paled and she swayed, leaning against the ladder for support.

“I remember,” Cullen told her quietly. He reached up to tug the ribbon from her hair. “May I?”

Essa nodded absently. Her hair fell softly around her face and Cullen fought the impulse to push it back from her brow.

“Yes,” Cullen continued, clearing his throat. “Cassandra explained as well. But what I mean is: what made you choose that particular defense when you had others?”

“Oh,” Essa shrugged, turning away from his careful attention to her hand. She stared into the silence for several breaths before she broke it. “You were trapped in a nightmare. I’ve been there, and there was never a good way to get me out of them. Not without someone getting hurt. I knew that magic would only make it worse for you, and I didn’t think you would ever look at me again if you drew your sword on me when I only had a dagger to defend myself.”

“You had more than a dagger,” he reminded her. But she was right, the image her words conjured did not bear thinking on.

“I told you, no magic,” Essa looked back down at their hands. “Distraction and incapacitation. I took a shot. A bad one it seems.”

“Not a bad one.” Cullen began winding the heavy silk snugly around her finger so that the set would hold fast for when she healed them. “An effective technique despite its impulsive execution. If I recall, you did not have the best stance.”

She laughed. “No, I didn’t, I sort of launched myself at your head, fist first.”

Cullen shook his head in helpless exasperation. Even with his worries, he was finding it difficult not to see the same humor that Cassandra did in the entire situation. Only Essa would have reacted as she had.

“And you didn’t see a healer because…?”

Essa watched as he tied the ribbon in place. “I was waiting for you.” Her smile was faint on the edges, but true. “To see if you were going to let me heal your head.”

Cullen chuckled. “So this,” he looked down at the red silk. “Was your bargaining chip?”

Essa shrugged again. “It was all I had.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Before he lost his nerve, Cullen bent his head, whispered a kiss over the chilled landscape of her palm. “But I accept your terms.”

She reached for him again--more cautiously this time--resting her elbow on the ladder rung and slowly sliding the tips of her fingers across the field of bruises around his temple. The ribbon caught against his stubble, a cool slide still warmer than her skin. For a breath, Essa’s fingertips curved in an aching embrace.

“Don’t let me fall,” Essa whispered, stepping closer to hook one foot in the bottom of the ladder. She fumbled for him with her left hand, fingers tangling with his on the rung just below his heart. Cullen stepped closer, body brushing against hers, the plaintive creak of the ladder a hard reminder of how little remained between them.

“I won’t.”

She nodded once before her eyes slipped shut. Essa’s magic flooded in, warm and certain, chasing away old ghosts and the night’s doubts. Healing came more easily to her than it had once; both the art and the impulse were stronger within her. Her breath fanned across his face, and Cullen leaned in, bumping his forehead against the ladder to place a kiss on her cheek, ignoring the voice in his head that whispered bitter and blue that he did not deserve her. Essa sighed softly, murmured a wordless affirmation of his courage.

Then her lips brushed his cheek in return.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his skin. “I’m sorry for sneaking up on you while you were asleep, sorry for knocking you in that stone you call a head, and I’m sorry…so very sorry that my cold nerves made you think for even a moment that I was a nightmare.”

They hung there for interminable moments, faces canted awkwardly between the rungs of the ladder, Cullen’s cheek cradled in her hand. The healing line of her forefinger was a silk-wrapped edge just beside his eye and he could finally feel the warmth of her body filling the scant space between them. Cullen breathed her in, lips hovering so close to hers that he knew later he would curse himself a fool for replying instead of kissing her.

“I’m sorry that you broke your finger on the stone I call a head.” There was so much more that he wanted to say, but Cullen suspected she would not accept further remorse--not without an argument that both she and Cassandra would win. “And that I didn’t realize I had you in my bed when I did.”

She smirked and Cullen pressed his forehead to hers. The throbbing in his skull was already subsiding. He sighed, gathered himself for the next question.

“’Cold nerves’?”

Essa nodded. “It doesn’t happen often.” Her lips twisted. “Hasn’t in years, but when my nerves get the better of me, my temperature drops.”

“And you aren’t nervous now?”

“Different sort,” she whispered. The confession landed warm against his lips.

“Should we…?” Her temperature was rising by the moment. There was noticeable heat spreading in the tangle of her fingers with his, the press of her palm on his cheek, the healing energy that seeped beneath his skin.

“I’m fine,” she murmured. “Just keep talking to me.”

“What had you nervous then?”

Essa shivered, drew in a long, slow breath. “Your letter.” Her fingers flexed in a gentle test against his cheekbone.

Cullen’s breath caught. “You’ve already read it?”

He should have known that Sera would not wait for the morning to deliver the note.

Essa nodded, forehead bumping lightly against the bridge of his nose, eyes still tightly shut. “Sera’s orders,” she murmured. She licked her lips. Took another gulp of air as if she needed it. “Did you…Do you still?”

“Yes,” Cullen said. “Still.”

“It’s a new day,” she warned as she began to extricate herself from the ladder, and the wonderful ravel that they had become.

Above them, dawn was beginning to paint the sky in shades of flame. Essa opened her eyes and Cullen met her stare without flinching.

“And it is yours,” he vowed.

 


	9. Nice Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to write the entire canon scene, after all, most of us agree that it's pretty perfect as it is. :) But I do have this little drabble from a #kissestoday prompt over on tumblr and as it is about their first kiss, I figured I would post it here. :)

When they finally surrendered to the hope of each other, it was not with a passion’s clamoring or the race of desire’s persistence.  It was not a blaze or a surge, or anything that would destroy, leaving them broken in its wake. She came to him with her heart and her fears held tightly in both hands, and he pried them loose, gently, tenderly.  Gave her his in return.

And still, the first time he kissed her, they both forgot the burdens that they carried. There was only the skim of his hand along her jaw, the urgent forgiveness in her arms as they wrapped around him. She kissed him back, a fleeting answer to questions they had both forgotten to ask. When he pulled away for just a moment, to apologize, to mutter something stupid that he might barely have meant, she smiled, eyes bright and grey like the sky behind snow clouds.

He kissed her again, testing them both as quickly as he dared. Better to ask forgiveness than permission she had once told him, but that was false and they both knew it. Bravado trapped halfway between jesting and her grim certainty that the only way to defeat her demons was to ambush them.

He crowded her against the stone, had and lost the thought that he might should give her just a little space, but she pulled him closer, pressed warm and trembling against the cage of his body, and caution fell to hands that grasped in frustration at his armor. Essa’s eyes slipped closed and she struggled still closer. Her tongue swept into his mouth and she burned, hot and fast like glory.

“Essa,” Cullen whispered, pulling back to place gentle pecks up on her cheeks. His heart was pounding too fast for reason, and he fought for it as the sunlight crept across her face. “Take a breath, beautiful. Come back to me.”

The wind teased in cold and bracing despite the onset of summer. He let it sweep between them, watched her frown as she wrested her body from passion’s hazy edge.

“I’m nowhere else,” she said thickly, dragging in a semblance of calm and struggling to open her eyes. “Might be better if I was.”

He chuckled softly. “I don’t know about that.”

Essa smiled warily, but when she finally dragged her gaze to his, Cullen saw only the brazen confirmation of his own daring.


	10. Apostate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trouble with apostates. Cari settles into life at Skyhold and worries about Essa's future.

Cari lay in bed watching the first rays of morning stripe the jagged snowcaps in rainbow promises. She should have been up already; her days were busier than they had ever been, even when she was living at the Chantry in Ostwick. Every day was something new, though being a creature of habit she attempted to maintain something of a routine. Each morning after prayers, she took her breakfast alone in her rooms and tended to correspondence ahead of the day. She had been surprised by the number of letters she received. Notes from her parents, of course, but also letters from friends and acquaintances and former charges she had not spoken to in years. Not since she left the Chantry.

“Oh! My lady, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were still abed.”

The head cook’s daughter stood in the doorway to Cari’s bed chamber a breakfast tray clutched in her hands. The girl was a favorite of Essa’s and while there were no personal servants at Skyhold, Nadie seemed to have taken it upon herself to dote on the Trevelyan sisters.

“Please, Nadie,” Cari sat up slowly amid her bed covers. “Don’t apologize. I will never frown upon a smiling face or breakfast, no matter the hour of their arrival. Though this morning, I believe I am late, not that you are early.”

Nadie grinned. “Are you feeling well?” she asked as she took the tray over to the desk.  “I don’t know as I’ve ever arrived when you were still in your blankets.”

Cari felt like she had been run over by a carriage, but that was not a conversation they were going to have. “I am fine, thank you for asking. I’m afraid I was up too late reading last night.”

The books on Circle and Templar history were still on her bed scattered among her pillows.

“Careful you don’t strain your eyes, my lady,” Nadie reproved gently. “Mum says too much reading by candle light will make you go blind.”

Cari dragged her aching body from the comfort of her bed. She stood a moment, unsteady feet sinking into the heavy carpet. “Your mother is quiet right,” she told Nadie as she slowly stretched her arms and legs. “I’ll need to be more careful in the future.”

The days were growing longer, perhaps soon she would be able to get her reading finished before sundown, though what on earth she would do with the rest of her evenings was beyond her. Cari had never known such freedom. Her days were filled with combat training and study. There was so much about the Chantry's history that she didn't know and she was determined to learn.

Nadie bustled over and began plucking books from the bed ignoring Cari’s murmurs of disapproval.

“Nadie, that is not a part of your duties.”

It was an argument they had been having every morning since Essa departed for Redcliffe Farms.

“About that,” Nadie said, stacking the books neatly on the floor. “Commander Cullen suggested that I speak with Ambassador Montilyet about helping you out in the mornings. Since Es—I mean," she gulped a breath and began again. "Since the Inquisitor doesn’t need a lady’s maid, he thought I might earn some coin helping you. Some of the other girls do small chores and fetch and carry for Madame de Fer  and—”

Cari stopped her before Nadie could comment too fully to her persuasion.

“I don’t have any way to pay you, Nadie.”

The girl grinned as she swiftly tugged the bedcovers to rights. “You don’t have to. Ambassador Montilyet is setting aside a salary for me. I’ll come every morning with your breakfast, just as I have been, make your bed, help you get dressed if you need it, and then you can give me a small list of anything you need done for the rest of the day. ‘Light duties only’,” she added in such a perfect impression of Cullen that Cari laughed.

“You have been very busy on my behalf, thank you.”

Nadie flushed. “Just didn’t seem right is all, leaving you to fend for yourself, my lady," she prattled along merrily. "I’m sure you had a proper maid back home, I won’t be.”

Cari pulled the child into an impulsive hug. “Thank you,” she said again. “And please pass my gratitude along to Commander Cullen and Ambassador Montilyet. I will thank them personally, but you’re much faster than I am. I imagine you’ll see them first.”

“You’re welcome, miss.” Nadie hugged her back, and Cari didn’t miss the exchange of her title for something friendlier and less formal. “We’ll take good care of you here.”

“I know you will.”

*

Nadie’s kindness was to be commended, but the Inquisition’s charity would not do. Cari checked her appearance for the fifth time in the heavy gilt mirror that hung on the wall of her sitting room. It had been a gift for Essa, just one of her sister’s many castoffs. Cari didn’t mind those offerings. They would have languished in packing crates if not for her. No one else would accept them, Lady Josephine had assured her, and by doing so she not only eased Essa’s concerns for her comfort, but fostered diplomatic relations between the Inquisitor and her patrons. While Essa was not one to express gratitude for gifts she did not want, she had personally written to thank each patron who had contributed to her beloved sister’s comfort. Soon, the ambassador warned, Cari’s favor would be courted by those wishing to ingratiate themselves with the Herald of Andraste.

But this was different. Cari smoothed the heavy panels of her velvet skirts. The gown had been a gift from one of the visiting Orlesian dignitaries, a beautiful fall of midnight and silver, cinched to her hips with a tapestried corset in colors of storm. Cari had been instantly taken with the dress, though upon actually wearing it, she wasn’t nearly as enamored with the rigid structure of the corset. Still, it was polite to be seen in the gift, and she had a few hours before she had to meet Krem for her late morning training session.

“You’ve a curl loose,” Nadie said, tucking the long coil into Cari’s carefully arranged hair.

“Thank you.”

“Pretty as a picture.” She balanced the empty dishes from Cari’s breakfast on one hip. “Can’t say I envy you the contraption.”

Cari chuckled. “You are a wonderful treasure of forthrightness,” she told her as she tugged on her leather gloves. “Don’t ever change, Nadie.”

“I’ll be sure to tell mum you said so, next time she tells me that I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.”

“Please do,” Cari said. “And if you receive any other complaints, you can direct them to me.”

Nadie’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I would, my lady, but you’d be busy all day and I know you’ve more important duties.”

She followed Cari to the door and out into the corridor. “I’ll come back to check on you after dinner.”

“You’ll find me in the Inquisitor’s chambers.”

“Yes, miss.”

The affection in that “miss” warmed her more than she would have ever thought. Cari watched as Nadie bustled off, humming a cheerful tune. She was loathe to give up her newly acquired companion, but she was determined not to rely on the kindness extended to her only because of Essa. She could only hope that she and the ambassador could come to some sort of amicable arrangement. It was past time that she began contributing.

“Good morning, Lady Trevelyan.”

Cari nodded politely, called greetings and salutations as she made her way through the keep. She was still surprised at the welcome she had received. At best, she had expected people to be too busy to pay her much attention. At worst, she had expected suspicion at her sudden and permanent residency.  She had not expected to slip so easily among Skyhold’s people.

“Good morning, Ser Dorian, Mother Giselle,” Cari paused politely near Dorian’s reading alcove. “I trust the two of you are in good spirits this fine morning.”

“Good morning, Sister Carilyna.”

She had interrupted more than one argument between the two of them since her arrival. The Tevinter did not look up from his book, but she saw a glint of humor in his eyes.

“It is a day almost as lovely as I am,” Dorian replied. “As are you, Lady Trevelyan.”

She hid a smile. “You are too kind, ser. And you, Mother Giselle, I trust you have been busy in the garden now that spring has come?”

Cari extended her elbow, leaving the older woman no choice but to take it. She heard Dorian’s snort of smothered laughter as she led Mother Giselle away.

“The garden is coming along nicely,” Mother Giselle assured her, falling in beside Cari. “You will be helping us with the plantings this afternoon?”

“I will.” Cari nodded gently. “The Herald and I have drawn up some plans for the herb beds. I thought that you and I could take a look at them before we get started.”

“Of course.”

They made their way around the rotunda; Cari could only hope that when they parted ways the woman would not return to badger Dorian.

“I should go,” she said, reaching for the door. “But I will see you later today.”

“Until then, my child. Maker be with you.”

“And you, revered mother.”

The fresh air and sunshine were welcome after the interior dimness. Cari took a deep breath and stole herself against a wave of apprehension as she made her way across the footbridge to the command tower.

*

“We’ll deal with the apostates,” the templar assured him with a short nod of affirmation that did little to assuage Cullen’s worry.

There was a very real threat in the Western Approach—apostate mages determined to willingly join Corypheus’s forces—and who better to send than their templar allies? Still he found the too familiar zeal in the officer’s eyes unsettling, and after last autumn, he would always wonder who among the Order held Essa in the same low regard.

“Be certain of your targets,” he ordered sharply. “Hunting non-threatening apostates is not the current objective of the Inquisition or the Templar Order.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Dismissed, Marlon.”

Cullen could tell the man wasn’t happy about it. He waited for the door to close behind the Knight-Captain and bent over his desk to make a quick note to send a more neutral officer along with him. Someone to balance out Marlon’s conservative leanings.

“Well, that was certainly enlightening.”

Cullen didn’t glance up as Cari glided out of the shadows. She had slipped in behind one of the runners a quarter hour ago. He had wondered how long she would hide in silence.

“Was it?” He was learning to lay traps with words too. She stopped in front of his desk, full skirts and false smile taking up too much space in his office. “You’re looking very…Orlesian today. No mask?”

“A lady always has her mask, Knight-Commander,” Cari replied coolly. “Should we send a runner out to warn the Inquisitor that there are mage-hunters about?”

So that was what had her miffed.

“The Inquisitor made the Order her allies,” he explained as he might to a particularly precocious child. “She is in no immediate danger.”

He watched her eyes frost over at his tone and nearly smiled. She wasn’t as volatile as Essa, but she had a temper as well. Better that they learn its limits before she was too involved with her responsibilities to the order.

“I didn’t realize,” he continued, shuffling the seemingly endless daily documents into orderly piles. “That we needed to have a discussion about our positions on the Mage-Templar conflict this morning.”

Cari’s fingers twitched before she clasped them behind her back. She said nothing. Very loudly.

“I take it this is more personal than political.”

Cullen finally straightened from his desk. She drew herself up as if she might approximate his height.

“Have you heard from her?”

“The Inquisitor left Redcliffe Farms early yesterday morning with a new warhorse that Seeker Pentaghast hates. They should arrive tomorrow, around midday. I do not think the Inquisitor will remain beyond the time it takes to resupply.”

“And then she’ll be gone for a month."

“At least.”

They stood in uncomfortable silence and Cullen found himself searching for a way to breach the wall between them. They had not been friendly, but in the weeks before Essa’s last return they had worked well enough together on plans for the templars’ land grant.

“Was there something you needed?”

“I wanted to thank you for sending Nadie to help me,” she began. “But I’m afraid that I can’t place that kind of burden on anyone. I have nothing to offer her for her services.”

“The Inquisition is glad to--”

“I don’t want charity, Commander.”

Cullen sighed. Of course she didn’t. It had taken Essa weeks to stop foraging for her own food. Why should they expect her sister be any more reasonable?

“It isn’t charity, Lady Trevelyan. You are doing a great deal of work on the Inquisitor’s behalf. If you wished, you could draw a salary right along with Nadie. Would you like me to speak with Ambassador Montilyet on your behalf?”

“No,” she answered quickly. “I will speak with her, thank you.”

She paced away from him then, her steps graceful as a dance and as fraught with leashed energy.

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Yes.” She tossed her head and a lock of hair escaped its tidy knots.

“I know that I haven’t the right,” her voice was as flat as black ice. “But I feel that I must know your intentions, ser. My sister is an apostate—“

She reminded him a bit of his sister then, protective and possessive. 

“All mages are apostates,” he reminded her, just as he had to so often remind Essa. “But I suppose if anyone has the right to question my intentions it’s you.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “You care for your sister very much, but I…”

 _Haven’t been able to stop thinking of having her in my arms again._ Cullen scowled, shoved back the unbidden thoughts that were becoming increasingly familiar.  

Cari opened her mouth to speak and Cullen cleared his throat. He held up one hand. “I will not answer to you. My personal life is none of your business, Lady Trevelyan, and anything regarding your sister should be taken first to her.”

It seemed that the unspoken truce of Essa’s convalescence was over. Cari’s mask finally cracked; she frowned, and for a moment she reminded him too much of her sister.

“Do you love her?” Cari asked boldly, jolting him from his thoughts.

“It’s a little early—“

“You’re a terrible liar, Commander,” she cut him off with a glare. “Don’t insult either of us by attempting to finish that deflection.”

She stalked back toward his desk. “You have to know she won’t go back to a circle.”

Cullen met her gaze, watched doubt and fear chase each other like storm clouds before an east wind. Violet fled over across the grey. He might not be ready to talk about his feelings for Essa, but this, this was a certainty that he had long come to.

“I know.”

“You know?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded. “It seems to be a difficult concept for you Trevelyans,” he observed drily. “But it is  _former_  templar. There is no ‘knight’ before ‘commander’.”

Cari would do nothing so undignified as scowling at him, but Cullen saw in her eyes that she wanted to.

“What will you do?”

What would he do? Cullen almost laughed. As if he could stare through the uncertainty of the months to come to find anything beyond wishes and dreams on the other side.

“If by some miracle we both survive the coming battles?” Cullen asked. “I’m afraid that no one in the Inquisition has the luxury of such fancies, Lady Trevelyan. We might all well be dead within the year.”

He meant for his candor shock her; he should have known that it wouldn’t.

“But if we aren’t?” she pressed.

Cullen ran one hand through his hair. He would almost rather she had come to badger him over kissing Essa. Sera had hounded him for days before giving up. Those long trying hours had been time had been well spent compared to this worrying over what-ifs and hope-fors.

“If we live,” he stated carefully. “And  _if_  the Circles are reinstated, and  _if_  the Herald isn’t granted whatever liberties she might want based on her having saved the whole of Thedas, then I will keep account of my dagger and be sure not to stand between her and her freedom. Now if we are finished, I should get back to my duties.”

“Good day, Commander.” 

 She turned abruptly on her heel and swept out of his office, leaving Cullen feeling as if he had been the one dismissed.

“Piece of work, that one,” Sera said dropping down from his loft.

“You’ve already said you that you like her.” Cullen grumbled. “I thought we were through with the lurking?”

“Pssbbtt.” Sera stuck her tongue out at him. “Thought she’d come to get the gossip out of you.”

Maker give him strength. “Go, Sera,” Cullen pointed to the door.

“Ugh!” Sera huffed at him. “You’re worse now. You two did the kissing wrong!”

She stormed out before he could reply, slamming the door that Cari had been too gracious to abuse.

“We did not,” Cullen muttered into the empty room. “Do the kissing wrong.”

Sera squealed with glee from the other side of the door.


	11. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essa returns from the Hinterlands with a new warhorse, some dragon teeth, and a whole bunch of butterflies. (reposting of Essa and Cullen's second kiss in proper chronology). First person, Essa's pov.

We arrived late to Skyhold, just behind a heavy summer storm. So late, in fact, the night watch didn’t sound an alarm, they simply rode out to meet us on the bridge. The guards put their weapons away quickly enough, exchanging swords for smiles of welcome and head shakes that they thought I couldn’t see.

It had been crazy, Bull said, to even think of riding straight through the night, but he had been just as anxious to get back as I was, and if he gave me too much teasing about Cullen, he knew I’d tell the others why.

Still, once we were home, they took pity on me. Saying nothing of my barely contained impatience, the boys help me rub down and tend to the horses instead of relying on my usual habit of tending to all four myself. It had been a long week, and I was giddy, strung out from the road and too many yearnings.

When both Geri and my new brute of a warhorse were tucked comfortably in their stalls, I all but threw myself out of my filthy clothes and into the nearest water trough.

Cassandra muttered something that sounded like “goodnight.” She cast one last disapproving glance at the new horse. Cacique glared back at her and I shook my head. 

“You’re too much alike,” I snickered and not for the first time since we picked up the monster.

There was laughter as the Iron Bull and Varric wished me a good night and headed out. Bull called some teasing comment about my ass over his shoulder. I added another figure to his standing tab and he laughed.They didn’t realize how much I reeked–they didn’t smell any better–but there was no way I was returning to Cullen without at least the first two layers of dirt gone.

“My lady.”

The soap that hit the water in front of me contradicted the deferential words with a grand splash of water into my face. I swore cheerfully at Blackwall as I searched for the bar and heated the water with a gentle expelling of magic.

“I’m sorry we woke you,” I apologized. “But—“

I found the soap with a triumphant “ha!”

“I can’t say I’m not a little glad,” I admitted. “I don’t think water was going to be enough this time.”

Blackwall chuckled, eyes politely averted from my impromptu bath.  They had all gotten used to me. Months in the field meant that we adjusted to one another or we killed each other. I think it helped them to wave most of my idiosyncrasies off as being touched by Andraste. Though the Chantry couldn’t possibly appreciate my lack of modesty being blamed on the Maker and his Bride.

“Rough trip?” he asked.

We were days later than we’d planned, and though we had sent word, I imagined no few were mad at me. I heard a rustle of cloth and then a clean rag smacked me in the face.

“Nah,” I replied. “Nothing too terrible, but I broke down and took Bull to kill that Fereldan Frostback. He kept insisting he needed teeth or something.”

I shrugged. “It was messy. By the time it was over, I was just ready to be home.”

Home. Blackwall was the only one I’d spoken to in a week who didn’t fill in the rest for me with overly verbose clarifications. 

“There’s a towel here,” he said instead. “And clothes that Ambassador Montilyet brought down after the last time you decided you’d rather bathe in the barn than in ‘an appropriate tub’.”

I grinned. “Remind me to buy Josie some chocolates the next time we’re in Val Royeaux.”

“I will try to remember.”

I ducked my head beneath the water then worked a heavy lather into it with the soap. It smelled like lemon balm and mint, a rarely advertised favorite of mine.

“Did she bring the soap down too?”

“Aye, and a comb, and a small bottle of oil for your hair. Said to tell you that even good soap will strip it to straw.”

“I’ll take her flowers in the morning,” I declared with a laugh. “The crystal grace should be blooming in the garden.”

“Do that,” he agreed.

I heard the unmistakable sound of an empty bucket being turned over.

“If there’s nothing else you need, I’ll leave your things here, my lady. Don’t worry about the trough. I’ll empty it in the morning.”

“Thank you, Blackwall.”

I didn’t know what I would do without him. Without all of them. I hoped that in time my sister would find something of what I had among them.

“It’s good to have you home,” he told me earnestly. “Skyhold’s not quite the same without you. Too bloody quiet.”

It didn’t take much longer for me to get off what I hoped was most of the dirt. I climbed out of the trough, grabbed an extra bucket from a peg by the door and dumped the water over my head in an attempt to rinse whatever might have been remained. I shivered and told myself it was the sudden cold.

I hadn’t seen him in nearly two weeks. We had left for the Hinterlands the day after that first—and second—kiss. I felt like a bumbling fool. I should have sent a note back or something. Right? Some small token or mention of my affection. Isn’t that what people did?

Bah, I was terrible at figuring out what people did.

I dried off quickly, wrapped my wet hair in the towel and reached for the pile of…

Wait. This wasn’t clothes. This was cloth. I lifted the linen and stared at it. This was one ridiculously thin excuse for what? A dress? A gown?

I gave the thing a hesitant shake and watched a piece of parchment flutter to the ground.

Oh, Josie, I thought. You will not be getting flowers. I picked up the small square of parchment and held it up to one of the lamps. I read the words with a groan.

_My dear Inquisitor,_

_Perhaps next time you will reconsider bathing in the barnyard rather than the very nice, very expensive tub that has been furnished for your quarters. Enjoy your evening._

_J_

I couldn’t help laughing. If our fair ambassador thought she could embarrass me with fashion that surely came from Orlais’s boudoirs, she was sadly mistaken. As I tugged the garment over my head, I considered wearing it to the morning meeting.

One of my vices was linen, and as the fabric slid down my body, I forgave it for Josie’s meddling. I had always loved well-washed linen, and the soft, square-necked gown smelled faintly of lavender and strongly of sunshine. So what if it was probably transparent during the day? I decided. Or if there was no way to keep the neckline on both shoulders. It was night now, and what sliver of moon hung in the sky hid behind clouds. The skirt hit the top of my feet, cool folds hanging with such pleasant weight that I spun in a little circle, watching the pale fabric bell out around me.  

I combed my hair, and used magic to dry it. I was getting more comfortable with the fire that bloomed beneath my skin and small tasks such as these made me less distrustful of my power. I had Cullen to thank for that too. Whether he realized it or not, he had shown me that my connection to the Fade was about of more than destruction.

I bundled up my armor, firmly pushing away any worries of what Cullen might think of my ridiculous gown. I tucked my gear in front of Geri’s stall for morning retrieval. I had been a responsible Inquisitor for about as long as I could stand. I tugged on the pair of slippers that Josie included. At least they were leather, I thought. They had a decent heal and soles hard enough to carry me across the castle grounds.

The only thing that kept me from running across the yard was knowing without question that I would have raised an alarm and had a few dozen templars racing to my side. Hardly the entrance I was hoping to make. I nodded and called a quiet hello to the night watch, giggling to myself that they didn’t seem remotely surprised by my attire. We were all, I thought again, getting used to one another.

I lifted my skirts to begin my climb up to Cullen’s tower. I was already warming to the gown more than I wanted to admit. I liked the weight, the perfect and simple drape. I counted the steps as I made my way up, forcing more restraint than I thought I had not to skip the last few.

I knocked politely. I didn’t think he was asleep yet, but the hour was late after all. When I received no answer I paced across the battlements, skirt snapping in agitation. I came to my senses when the wind whipped my gown against my legs and reminded me that I was determined  _not_  to be a heroine in some literary romance.

I let myself into his office long enough to determine that Cullen was neither there, nor in the upstairs loft. I caught one of the guards as I left.

“He’s probably at prayers, Inquisitor. Likes the quiet this late.”

Of course he did. There was still so much to learn about each other.

I headed for the garden, content to wander among the herbs and flowers. It was a warm night, at least by Skyhold’s standards, perfect for sleeping outside. I had a blanket stashed in a chest on the colonnade. Had to keep it hidden from Josie, she still didn’t like me sleeping outside. I detoured just long enough to retrieve the well-worn quilt. 

My favorite sleeping spot was nestled amid the water barrels where we grew black lotus and dawn lotus, not far from a stand of prophet’s laurel. I spread the blanket on the ground.

“Essa?”

There was something off in Cullen’s voice. I hadn’t heard the chapel door open, but there he stood, just inside the colonnade. I smiled at him, offered him a little wave across the garden. When he didn’t move, when his feet clung to stone and his face remained in the shadows, I got nervous.

“Good evening,” I ventured, more hesitant that I’d ever been in my life. “It’s a fine night.”

Cullen crossed the garden in a rush. I took two steps toward him, then stumbled to a halt. His eyes traveled over me roughly and I lifted my hand to my throat just like one of those blighted damsels I insisted I couldn’t be. When he reached me, he caught me by my elbows and I gasped.

“Maker’s breath, woman,” his words tumbled out in a rush. “You nearly scared me to death. What are you wearing? I thought you were a ghost.”

I opened my mouth to answer him, but his lips stole all words from mine. His hands gentled, running supple leather across the prickling skin of my arms before framing my face and gathering me close. He didn’t touch me as if I were the fragile, fainting thing I suddenly felt like. No. Cullen held me as if I were the only solid truth in the world.

I leaned into him, kissed him back until we were both breathless. If I was going disgrace myself with a swoon, he was going to suffer the same embarrassment.

“I was going to make you kiss me next,” he murmured against my jaw.

I laughed softly, fingers tunneling into his hair.

“I had every intention,” I assured him.

I pressed kisses on his cheekbones, down the side of his neck. 

“I suppose I should thank Josie for the addition to my wardrobe.”

“Josie,” he said as if that answered all possible questions about my unusual attire. “Yes, I suppose we should.”

He grinned. Dropped another long, slow kiss upon my lips. “She left it at the stable for you.”

I laughed again. “Well she didn’t talk me into wearing it for courting.”

My comment was rewarded with a broad grin.

“And are you courting me, Essa Trevelyan?”

I glared up at him and he spared me the answering. 

“Or would you rather be wooed, Inquisitor? I’ve been considering my approach.”

I punched him lightly and he came back to my lips with a single-minded devotion that had my knees wobbling. I clung to his shoulders and swore at him until his laughter spilled into me between the soft lingerings of his mouth.

“I like your dress,” he said, placing a kiss on my bare shoulder.

“You can’t possibly,” I retorted, making him laugh more.

“I am glad to have you home.” 

Cullen smiled and caught my hand in his, lifting it to his lips.

“And I am glad to be home.”


	12. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final Chapter of this book! Blasphemy, kisses, and a body double? What mayhem will these crazy kids get into next?

Cari knelt in the chapel, the jagged caress of unyielding stone a welcome comfort beneath her knees and shins. Spring was upon them in earnest now, but there was yet a chill in the final pre-dawn moments and the cold that seeped past her skin settled in her bones like an unwanted certainty.  Essa had returned late the night before from the Hinterlands. Cari had barely spoken to anyone since then, but already she had heard whispers of the Inquisitor’s new warhorse and the impromptu dragon hunt that had delayed her party’s return. The brief foray to Redcliffe Farms was supposed to have been an easy trip, something to assure Essa’s worried advisors that the Inquisitor had recovered from…well whatever had happened in Orlais.

She still didn’t know what exactly had transpired. She knew that Essa had burned down acres of woodland and razed a staggering number of enemies to the ground when their camp was ambushed. Her sister had lost a beloved four-legged friend and it had taken her weeks to recover her energy; she knew that Essa still grieved. Though if taking down a Ferelden Frostback didn’t reassure everyone that Essa was fit for duty, she didn’t know what would. She offered a prayer of thanks to the Maker even as she begged for her sister’s protection. Loving Essa was a constant storm of helpless pride and awe and fear.

“’In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame’,” Cari murmured as she rose. “’All-consuming, and never satisfied’.”

“Someone we know?”

Cari startled; her left hand closed on the hilt of one of her knives even as she pressed her right over the pulse racing in her throat.

“Commander, I didn’t—“

Cullen stood just inside the chapel, one hand still on the partially opened door. The sky behind him was turning grey, but charcoal still; the sun would not struggle beyond the mountain tops for some time. They had not spoken since their last argument and if she were being honest, she wasn’t entirely certain what had caused it. Her own worries, she knew, and probably no small measure of pride on both their parts.

“I’m sorry to have frightened you.” Cullen frowned slightly; Cari stared past the fur of his collar. “You’re not usually here this time of morning.”

“No.” She slowly released her weapon, smoothed her skirt back into place so that the false pocket remained concealed. “I am usually in my rooms for morning prayers, but I…” she took a breath then hurried on. “I needed further fortification this morning.”

He made a small sound of understanding and Cari reluctantly met his gaze.

“Essa?”

Those two syllables revealed more than a thousand platitudes. The tawny depths of his eyes warmed and Cari saw the concession for what it was. He loved her. Even if he wasn’t ready to say it.

“Yes,” she took another slow breath and made what was probably the second most impulsive decision of her life. “Commander, may I have word with you?”

Cullen pulled the door closed behind him. “Of course.”

*

Essa paced outside of the war room, a giddy, expectant thing, close to getting on her own nerves. Her bare feet slapped the cool stone louder than necessary, the sound giving her some small measure of satisfaction as it broke the morning. She paused to look outside, face pressed to the windows staring out at the garden. She still felt foolish, hopeful and joyful and ridiculously giddy every time she thought of him, of the way he smiled at her in the moonlight and kissed her until she couldn’t feel her feet. When they had last parted, kisses and hands lingering in their reluctant goodnights, she had nearly skipped to her quarters, not wanting to share her joy with even Fin or Geri. She’d lain on her balcony amid pillows and blankets staring up at stars that felt closer, brighter, and impossibly familiar.

She didn’t know how or when she had slept, even knowing how much she needed to. They were leaving for the Western Approach in the morning to meet with Hawke and Stroud and she didn’t know what they would find, but she knew it wouldn’t be good. And yet, all she could think about was kissing Cullen. 

Some Inquisitor she was turning out to be.

“We’ll discuss it this morning.” Cullen’s voice preceded him into the short hallway as he and Cassandra entered from Josie’s office.

“Good,” Cassandra said. “I am concerned about rumors from the Hinterlands. We need to put down this unrest before any more suffer.” She paused. “Good morning, Inquisitor.”

“Good morning,” Essa replied, lips twitching as her gaze slid from Cassandra to Cullen. “Business as usual, or something more alarming?”

Essa focused dutifully on Cassandra. Cassandra was steady. Cassandra was safe. Cassandra would not coax from her anything so undignified as a giggle or the absurd grin that threatened to burst forth from her face every time she tried to look at Cullen.

“The usual,” Cassandra assured her with a mildly annoyed shrug. “Are you hiding from Sister Leliana and Lady Josephine again?”

“I might be. They were talking formal wear.” She grimaced. “With my sister.”

“And you fled?”

“Damn right I did.”

Cassandra laughed, but Essa’s eyes had already moved helplessly back to Cullen. When he finally caught one of her darting glances, he smiled at her, shy and hesitant in ways he had not been the night before. Essa’s rarely held composure cracked, and she fell into step between them hoping neither would notice her flushed cheeks.

“There will be no dresses,” Cassandra reassured her.

“I know,” Essa said drily, opening the door to allow Cassandra to enter the room first. “Andraste be praised.”

When Cassandra was nearly through the doorway, Essa raised her voice. “A moment, Commander?”

Cullen frowned in slight confusion, nodding once to Cassandra as she glanced back.

“Of course, Inquisitor.” Every word was one of perfect professionalism.

Essa closed the door between them with a bit more than her usual subtlety.

“I missed you,” she accused, lips caught between a grin and exasperation.

Cullen smiled then, an unhurried wondering that dragged his voice low. “I missed you.”

She reached for him, more slowly than they had before, hands not so much grabbing as entreating, coaxing him between her and the heavy Orlesian oak. His back hit the door and Cullen caught her elbows, held her up on her toes as she leaned against him.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she warned.

“I thought that might be your diabolical scheme,” he returned.

Essa did not kiss him with the same questions she held in her, bold but cautious. She kissed him with a hundred unspoken declarations, certainty punctuated with each tangling press of their lips. She kissed him until they were both breathless, until the sweetness of romance edged with more dangerous passions and his hands were gripping her arms tightly. Her body melted against his armor like a failed attack and she sighed in heavily, forcing a breath between them. There was a moment of desperate silence.

“Good morning,” Essa whispered roughly against his lips.

“Good morning,” Cullen rejoined hoarsely. He cleared his throat with wry grin. “We’re going to have to have a talk about discretion.”

Essa laughed. “Are we really?”

He kissed her quickly, despite the growing blush that warmed his cheeks. Reluctantly he stepped away from the door, set her back on unsteady feet.

“No,” he said, smiling. “Not really.”

He coughed lightly and Essa waited patiently for whatever he wanted to say.

“Have you spoken with your sister?”

She blinked. “Not quite what I was expecting,” she teased. “Is there something I should know?”

He nodded. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Next time,” she scowled. “Give me bad news before I kiss you senseless.”

Cullen smiled then and before she could worry too much he dragged her back into his arms and kissed her soundly. “You’re so surly,” he accused.

“You’re a fine one to talk!” Essa exclaimed.

“The kissing helps,” he murmured against her cheek.

“You’re beginning to sound like Sera.”

“Maker preserve us,” he muttered, dropping another kiss on her lips. “Take her with you when you leave.”

“Yes, Commander.” Essa laughed against his smile. “Are you going to give me this news that I’m not going to like that apparently involves my sister.”

Cullen groaned. “Just remember you once promised not to hit me.”

*

It hadn’t taken much to send Essa wandering from the war room in a swirl of boredom and dread. She would have felt badly for the ruse, but Essa’s earlier than usual arrival that morning had interrupted a conversation she could no longer put off. She stood across the war table from Sister Leliana and Ambassador Montilyet, hands clasped loosely before her, face devoid of the tumult of emotions that roiled in her stomach. Her breath was even, eyes and jaw soft. She had become adept at hiding her thoughts and feelings. Her mother might have been proud had she not been courting the Maker’s disapproval.

“You disagree?” she asked.

“I am not yet certain,” the spymaster retorted coolly. “I do not yet know your objectives, but you are more expendable than the Herald.”

“No offense taken,” Cari replied refraining from rolling her eyes. She knew that Leliana would not care if there had been, but Josephine surely would. “I am infinitely more expendable and equally more qualified to handle the demands of the Game.”

“What you are suggesting…” A frown marred the delicate contours of Leliana’s face. “That’s been done before.”

“Has it?” Cari asked, wondering if they were too polite to tell her that she was completely mad. No, she had piqued Leliana’s curiosity if nothing else. They couldn’t think that she was any more foolish than sending Essa to the Winter Palace and expecting anything other than a political nightmare.

Josie’s fingers drummed an unfamiliar rhythm on the edge of the table, dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully into the space between them.

“Perhaps,” she shrugged slightly. “In books or in songs, stories people cannot imagine are rooted in truth.” She shook her head. “But I do not know of any such instance in traceable history.”

“So it’s possible,” Cari confirmed with more certainty than she possessed.

“It…is…” Leliana hedged. “But very dangerous. We will need to do some preliminary trials before you do anything…”

She waved one hand toward Cari’s face. “Drastic.”

"Fair enough," Cari nodded. "So it's worth considering?"

"It is worth deliberating," Josephine replied.

“I will not be a passive tool.”

Leliana smiled, and Cari caught the barest hint of her teeth, bright like the edge of a blade. “You are still her sister. We would never be so foolish as to underestimate you.”

There was a warning behind soft laughter. Cari smiled slightly in acknowledgement. “You can’t tell me that neither of you have had the thought before.”

“The first moment I saw you,” Josephine admitted. “But I knew it for the fancy that it was.”

“The real question is,” Leliana let the query fall into the room between them. “Why would you wish to impersonate the Herald of Andraste?”

There it was then, her intentions spelled out in no uncertain terms. “Because, I have seen Essa faced with the Game." She chose not to continue. "She has enemies enough in Orlais,” she paused thoughtfully. “What do you think will happen when Diarmont Stanhope’s mother confronts her at the Winter Palace?”

“We have not yet confirmed that she will be in attendance,” Josephine hedged.

“Nor have you confirmed that she is the one who sent Essa his medallion and such kind anniversary wishes,” Cari snapped. “I understand that this offense is not a high priority to the Inquisition, but—“

“That isn’t fair, Lady Trevelyan,” Josephine interrupted with a sigh. “It has been only eight and a half weeks since the Inquisitor received—“

Leliana shook her head slightly.

“It has been eight and a half weeks since the Inquisitor first returned to Skyhold,” Cari corrected. “Time enough for her to go to the Shrine of Dumat, return, recover, then go to the Hinterlands to kill a blighted dragon, and we still do not know how the letter came to be on her desk!”

It was a mystery that rankled, the attack so deeply personal that she could help feeling that someone wished Essa harm. Not the Inquisitor, nor the Herald of Andraste, but Essa. She shook her head.

“That is a discussion for another time,” she said as the door opened and Cassandra stepped inside. “What say you ladies?”

“Commander Cullen is not going to like this,” Josephine opined.

“Like what?” Cassandra asked. The door slammed shut behind her and they all turned toward the too-loud sound.

“I already told him,” Cari admitted with a smile. “I thought it best to let him tell Essa.”

Leliana laughed, the sound bright and almost merry in the waning morning.

“You are sneakier than I thought, Lady Trevelyan.”

“Would someone _please_ tell _me_ what is going on?” Cassandra demanded.

Josephine walked around the table, drawing Cassandra aside and murmuring in quick, hushed tones.

“I am.” Cari agreed.

The spymaster’s gaze narrowed.  “You are going to need more than combat training.”

“You will have an eager student, my lady.”

“You what?!” Cassandra barked just as the door flew open and Essa stalked into the war room, Cullen close on her heels.

“Inquisitor—“ Cullen tried to slow her charge.

“Don’t you ‘Inquisitor’ me,” Essa groused. “I will deal with you later, Commander.”

She fell in beside Cassandra and Josephine retreated hastily to the far side of the war table.

“Clearly." Essa shook her head at the rest of them. "You have lost your minds.”

She and Cassandra stood shoulder to shoulder, a matched pair of scowls on their faces. Four against two, Cari thought, and she still didn’t like their odds. Josephine took a breath and if Cari had thought Essa was ready to see reason she would have let the ambassador take point in persuading her.

“ _Will you consider_ ,” Cari jumped in quickly, smiling when she saw recognition light her sister’s face at the familiar tone. “That I am no more likely to be killed pretending to be you than I am for the simple crime of being your sister.”

One of the few activities that all three Trevelyan children had participated in had been debating with their father. Between the four of them had always been at least two hot tempers and Bann Trevelyan had kept them in check with strict models for dialogue.

Essa closed her eyes, huffed out a breath. “ _Point_ ,” she muttered, adopting the familiar script. “But I am not convinced.”

“This would get you out of dancing.”

“I’m a passable dancer,” Essa countered easily. “And no slouch with currying favor through public spectacle.”

“Point,” Cari conceded. “But this is not swords and shields on the tourney field. This is tangled speeches and lying without words.”

She knew as well as any of them that what she was proposing was either heresy or insanity, possibly both, but Cari couldn't shake the feeling that it was important for her to take Essa's place at the Winter Palace.

“Point,” Essa grunted. They all knew she was a terrible liar. “But no one there would ever suspect me of being so honest.”

“Point,” Leliana's voice twinkled with mirth. Essa opened her eyes, a smirk teasing the edge of her lips as she met the spymaster's gaze. “There are several advantages to having your sister take your place, Inquisitor.”

“I can think of a few,” Essa admitted. “But I need to know, is this because you think I would let you down at Halamshiral?”

“Of course not,” Josephine assured her. “Though I would be lying if I did not confess a certain concern that you might start a war with Orlais.”

Essa’s mouth dropped open. “Are you teasing me, Josie?”

The ambassador's lips twitched slightly. “Perhaps.”

Essa turned from them, pacing toward the door then slowly ambling back again. “Are you trying to protect me?”

Cari smiled and relaxed the muscles around her eyes so that Essa could see the truth within in them.

“Actually, I was hoping to free you. There will be a lot to do at the Winter Palace. I think you might get more accomplished if you don’t have to worry about arriving to dinner on time or being seen with whatever stuffed shirt wants to appear to have your favor.”

“Well,” Essa tipped her head to one side and met Cari's earnest stare. “Now you’re talking some sense.”

Beside her, Cassandra’s stance began to relax. Slowly she stepped away from Essa until the six of them were more or less in their usual spots around the table. Leliana nodded once in approval and Cari let out the breath she felt she had been holding since Essa first joined them.

“Are you going to tell her the rest?” Cullen asked.

Essa raised one brow and Cari sighed.

“You’re going to have to wear a mask,” she told her sister.

“I what?”

Cari sighed again, this time theatrically enough to draw a smile from Essa before she delivered the final, terrible news.

“And a fancy dress.”

Essa’s response was a convolution of multilingual swearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I know the format of this got a little wonky with me trying to shuffle the previously written drabbles/oneshots into proper chronology, and to be honest I'm still not sure how I feel about it so if you've an opinion you want to share, I would be happy to hear it. Also, if you just want to leave me comments or love about the story itself, I would definitely love to hear that too. :D Thank you for reading!


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